The Fourth Kingdom
by Cris
Summary: Somebody's changing things from INSIDE the Matrix. The Matrix goes fantasy, Trinity faces her past, and the Oracle gets real. But is unplugging right for everyone?
1. Chapter 1

_Damn, I accidentally deleted this when I was attempting to delete something else. I apologize for messing with continuity on this site; just re-uploading. Don't mind me!_

**The Fourth Kingdom**

_What is the Matrix?_

It had all started with the simple question. Once, Neo thought the answer that question would bring meaning to his strangely empty life. He had been lost, adrift in a sea of antipathy, searching for meaning where he felt sure no meaning had ever existed. In finding the answer to the Matrix, he was sure the answer to his own life would follow. Surely, once he understood this strangely foreign, secret entity, he would understand everything. 

Bullshit. 

As he stared dumbly down at the ruined Sentinels littering the main deck of the Nebuchadnezzar, he knew with a kind of sinking feeling in his heart that the answers to the Matrix were nothing more than keys to even harder riddles to crack. He still felt empty…though this was a different kind of emptiness. He couldn't classify the difference; he wasn't sure if it mattered anyway. But there was definitely a difference between the emptiness of the Matrix and the emptiness of the real world. 

"I almost didn't make it." He looked up at her with something akin to reproach as he reached around behind him and tried to pull the data spike out of his access plug. He couldn't reach; his arm didn't bend quite right. With a lopsided attempt at a rueful smile, Trinity leaned forward and did it for him. She was backlit by the emergency lighting of the Neb, the strange pale light that was somehow like that of a tomb. 

This _was_ a tomb. Almost belatedly, Neo turned his head to look at the floor to his left. The covered bodies were proof positive of the terrible price they'd paid to gain him-gain the One. Guilt washed over him, and yet even crushed by that terrible emotion, he felt that this was somehow better than the hollow emptiness of before. 

Then Trinity touched him again, inadvertently brushing her hand against his arm as she reset the data spike in its holder, and everything vanished except that single point of contact as her skin brushed against the sleeve of his torn sweater. 

_This_ was something the machines hadn't managed to program correctly. Whether it was because they lacked the programming language to describe what it felt like when Trinity touched him or whether they had left such powerful emotions out of the Matrix on purpose, Neo didn't want to say. But whatever the reason, the surge of…he didn't have the words to describe that feeling…whatever it was…that shot through him when she touched him…it left him both overloaded and wanting more. 

Sudden scraping sounds alerted him to the presence of others, and he turned his head in time to see Morpheus and Tank coming around the Core to check on Trinity and himself. He met Morpheus' eyes, and nearly couldn't believe the fatherly pride he saw there. Pride…and concern. Morpheus_ cared_ about him. Morpheus cared what happened to him…and not just because Neo was the one. It was something else. He cared about _Neo_. 

Neo swallowed and broke the eye contact, gingerly pushing himself upright in his chair. He didn't hurt, though he knew he probably should. There was blood on his shirt, but when he cautiously put a hand to his stomach he felt no pain, no sting of exposed flesh without the protective layer of skin. 

"Jesus Christ, man, you took long enough," Tank said suddenly, breaking the silence and-to everyone's relief-the strained atmosphere. 

Neo didn't respond, only worked on getting on his feet again. He didn't hurt at all, but he knew he _should_, and that made him cautious. Trinity was there beside him in a moment, holding out an arm wordlessly, and he took it though he did not need it, wanting the simple shock of contact again. 

It came, though not in an unpleasant way, and Neo felt strengthened by the warmth in her hand as her callused palm rested against his smooth one. There was no question-Trinity was the strong one between the two of them. But they made a pretty good team, he figured. 

And she kissed like…he didn't know. Didn't want to say. Nothing he'd ever experienced before. He chalked it up to Trinity rather than the real world, for the electricity of contact had simmered below the surface every time she touched him, Matrix or no Matrix. It just hadn't been this potent before. 

"We have a lot to do, and not much time," Morpheus said, switching back into his commander mode. All three heads snapped up, knowing that what he would say must be obeyed if they were to continue to live. "The EMP disabled the Neb's electrical systems as well; we didn't have time to shut them down before blasting the Sentinels. We're going to have to get her running again-and fast." 

"Will they wake up?" Neo asked, cautiously toeing one robotic tentacle. It didn't move. 

"We're not going to leave them together enough to find out," Morpheus replied. "Tank and I are going down to see what's left of the med bay and try to patch him up. Trinity, you and Neo start dismantling the Sentinels, as fast as you can. All the spare parts go down to the scrap room to be melted down. I don't want anything left that the machines can still control. I'd leave them here if I could, but we just can't waste all this metal." 

Trinity nodded at that. "You want the hard drives and memory chips, too?" she asked. 

"No," Morpheus said in a tone that brooked no argument. "No matter how valuable they may be, we just can't risk transporting them with the Nebuchadnezzar in this condition. Melt them down into solid cylinders of metal and toss them out." He turned his head, and suddenly the bodies in their makeshift shrouds came into his line of sight. Pain slammed into his features for the briefest of instants before he shook his head. "We'll find the time to grieve later." 

It was then that he realized Neo wasn't paying attention. He was staring at the Core, scowling in thought. 

"What is it, Neo?"

Startled by the voice, he jumped. 

"Neo?" This time it was Trinity, her hand still locked with his. He looked into her eyes and he saw the questions there. But he also saw faith. No matter how ludicrous he sounded, she would believe him. Such faith…it frightened him with its awesome power. Her power.

"I think…" He wasn't sure about this, or about how to broach the topic, but he knew it was now or never. They couldn't waste any more time if what he'd felt back there in the Matrix had been real… "Morpheus, how long could Switch and Apoc's bodies last without life support?" he asked. "I mean, if they were to suddenly…wake up…would their bodies still function properly?"

There was a long, tense silence in which Morpheus weighed Neo's words, trying to guess what his young protégé was attempting to say. He knew well that the ex-programmer found speaking his mind and feelings very challenging, and also that he felt immensely uncomfortable attempting to do so. There was only one thing Morpheus could assume from those words, and he scarcely dared to hope…Neo thought he could bring them back. 

Morpheus glanced over at Trinity, who, instead of looking at him as she usually did, was still watching Neo. He had seen their clasped hands and the gentle glances between the two, though he had not seen either kiss-not the one that brought Neo back to life, nor the one that cemented the bond between them. He knew, though, that an important leap of faith had been successfully made and now the fruits of it were slowly being reaped. He knew that a budding relationship, if that were indeed what he was witnessing, would have to be nurtured. 

But this was not the time, nor the place, for such thoughts.

"What are you trying to say, Neo?" he asked, trying to pull the thoughts out of Neo's head without quite so much guesswork. 

"I…felt something. Back in the Matrix." Neo motioned with a jerk of his head toward the Core. "After the Agent. Morpheus, they're not dead. Not really." He swallowed; this was hard! "They were…separated from their bodies, I guess. They're floating in the Matrix as code. Eventually, with no anchor, they will fade away-die. But it hasn't happened yet." 

"You think you can bring them back." Trinity's eyes flickered and Tank saw the flame of stubborn will that had lighted those strange ice-blue eyes when she chose to throw her lot in with Neo and try to save Morpheus. She wanted Neo to try.

"I think I can." He looked at Morpheus. "I want to try."

Morpheus was silent a moment, weighing the pros and cons of letting Neo try. They would get to see more of what the One could-or could not-do. They might get their crewmembers, their friends, back. But then again, it would waste valuable time, and after the EMP blast he knew more Sentinels would be on their way to see what had caused such a disturbance. Time was against them. 

But wasn't it worth the risk? 

His mind was made up in a moment, and he nodded slowly. "Tank. Will you be all right for a little while longer?"

"Yes, sir." They could almost feel the excitement in their operator's voice. He wanted to see some of Cypher's dirty work erase itself, see them one-up the traitor.

"Then kick on the backup generator. Have Neo help you. Trinity, help me." 

They flew into action, Neo and Tank tailing it down to the engine room to manually switch on the backup power source. It hadn't been functioning when the EMP blasted the ship, so hopefully it would still be in workable condition. As they left, Morpheus and Trinity carefully lifted the blankets covering Switch and Apoc.

"This is crazy," Trinity said softly as she reached, hands trembling, under Switch's arms and lifted. Morpheus caught her legs, and together they ever so carefully hoisted the body into its loading chair. Trinity felt her gorge rise at touching the cold skin, knowing this was her friend, her crewmate, who lay so lifeless beneath her hands. Death was one of the very few things she had not come to terms with, one of the few things that could still scare her. Still shaking, she reached for Switch's data spike and inserted it in her plug. 

"Good," Morpheus said, reaching for the screens that listed Switch's flatline vitals just as the power flickered back to life. He allowed himself a small smile, then forced himself back into his expressionless mask. If Neo was wrong…. But, no. They had to trust him. He was the One. He knew what he knew, better than anyone else could tell him. He was a part of the Matrix like no other biological being ever could be. 

"She's stable," he said, nodding to Switch. 

Trinity, her eyes on the screens, nodded her assent. "Not much time left, but her blood hasn't congealed yet. If he hurries…" She let her voice trail off, but Morpheus already heard all he had to. He knew that she trusted him now, believed that Neo was the One and, inside the Matrix, could do anything. 

They lifted Apoc, bigger and more difficult to maneuver, and had his body securely strapped into its seat by the time Tank and Neo reappeared. 

"Ready?" Tank asked as Neo eased himself back into his seat and waited for the bitter cold of the data spike to take him. 

"Ready as I'll ever be," Neo replied. 

"Does it matter where I send you in?" 

Neo shook his head. "No. It'll only take a few minutes. That's all I'll need…to know whether this will work or not." 

Trinity stepped up beside him and reached for the data spike, but her eyes were on his face. "I trust you, Neo," she said. "You can do it." 

And with those encouraging words, he found himself back in Room 303 of the Heart o' the City hotel, a deserted little hovel of a room lit with dingy green. He closed his eyes and opened them again, in his head the thought of green code spilling from the walls and windows. Immediately as he thought of it, the Matrix was there in all its amazing complexity, its shifting, dynamic code that no human brain could ever memorize. 

Neo wasn't trying to memorize it. 

He thought of Switch, of how she looked and how she sounded, how she held her firearm, how she tossed her head as if she were trying to brush away long hair that wasn't there anymore. Immediately next to him he felt the code of the room change and what was left of Switch's mental-digital self appeared in the gap. The part of him that still saw with his everyday eyes could detect no change in the room, but the part of him that saw the Matrix as it truly was saw the difference. He looked her over quickly…and though he had never seen human code before, he immediately knew there was something not right about her. 

As soon as his mind sensed there was a problem, the questionable area highlighted itself. _Fix it,_ he ordered, and he saw the code change. Letters were subtracted, numbers switched around. He knew, as it righted itself, what had been wrong. Switch had gone insane.

At the second her mind detached from her body her mind had snapped. The strain of detachment had been too much for her, and she…broke. It was the only way he could explain it. But now he saw with his normal eyes a faint outline in the room, a body dressed in white. As the code became more and more correct, she grew more and more solid. And as the last line of digits fell into place she fell forward to her knees, coughed, gagged, sucked in a huge mouthful of air, and stared up at Neo as if she wasn't sure she were all in one piece. 

"What the fuck-"

"No time," he said. "Tank!"

The last was shouted into his cell phone, and almost instantly the exit phone in the room began to ring. Neo picked it up and held it out to Switch. "You've got to get out of here." 

"But where are the others?" She looked around. "What happened? I can't remember anything…" 

"They'll explain it back on the Neb," he said. "You have to trust me." 

She stared at him for a long minute, then nodded and took the phone. She disappeared, the receiver dropping to the table with a loud bang. Neo didn't care. There were no Agents around to hear it. He could tell, as he cast his senses out in the Matrix code, that no Agents were aware of his appearance yet. And if they became aware of it…well, he could handle that, too. 

Trinity unplugged Switch as the other woman gasped for air. Morpheus released her restraints and let her double over as she was attempting to do. He rested his hand on her back encouragingly as she coughed and tried to breathe. 

"You can do it," he urged, his eyes darting back and forth over her struggling form. Her heart rate on the monitor was off the wall, practically humming it was going so fast-a combination of adrenaline at waking up and her body attempting to pump blood through veins gone cold. 

"Cold," she whispered finally through her gasping coughs. "Why…breathing…heart…hurts…" 

"You'll be all right," Morpheus said. "Just calm down. Concentrate on breathing. The answers are coming." 

Then another call from Neo, another tap from Tank, and Apoc was with them and going through the same thing. He blacked out, unlike Switch, and Morpheus and Tank lowered him to the floor on his back, still attached to the monitors. Trinity continued to watch Switch as the two bigger men labored over their comrade, though Switch was getting her breath back and her heart was returning to normal. 

"Here." Trinity threw a blanket over Switch's shoulders, and the blond woman gratefully huddled under it. Her body temperature had dropped dangerously when she died, and she had come back to that cold body. She shivered, and Trinity rubbed her shoulders through the blanket, roughly rubbing up and down her arms to stir circulation. "We'll get you warm again as soon as we can." 

Tank was busy helping Morpheus as they monitored the unconscious Apoc, so when the call came through from Neo Trinity deftly slipped the earpiece off his head and took over as operator for him. 

"Trinity?"

"You were maybe expecting the Easter bunny?" she asked sweetly.

"How are they?" 

"Come see for yourself." She typed in the access codes and then hit the button on the touchscreen and patched the call through. He hung up the cell phone, and she watched his encoded self on the screen pick up the exit phone and disappear. 

She was at his side as he opened his eyes, and she tapped his screen and then unplugged him. Her eyes were unreadable, but the corners of her mouth tipped up in her imitation of a smile as she looked at him. "You did it." 

He glanced over and saw Switch huddled in her blanket and Apoc, now sitting up and attended by Morpheus and Tank. The glance took seconds, if that, and then his dark eyes returned to Trinity. The silence between them thickened, and he slowly lifted his head toward hers…

"Neo." 

They both jumped as if stung, and as one they swiveled around to face Morpheus, the source of the call. Instantly he regretted disturbing them, for he had not seen what was happening before he called the name. Now he wished he'd had better timing…but that could not be helped. Trinity, he knew, would understand. 

"Sir." 

"Good work." He smiled, the mysterious Morpheus smile that seemed both to be a sign of pleasure and a sign of…something else that nobody could quite know. Neo knew, at that smile, that no matter how important Morpheus said the One was, Neo would never be anywhere near as knowledgeable or important as Morpheus himself.

Neo acknowledged the praise with a nod, but his face still showed insecurity. He sat sideways in his chair and Trinity joined him, the two squeezing together, as Morpheus addressed the rest of the group. 

"The impossible has become possible, in more ways than one," he said, his voice grave, "and we have cause both for great pain and great joy. We found a traitor in our midst-one capable of both blackmail and murder." Switch and Apoc watched him with blank faces, neither able to quite fathom the importance as their commander spoke. "Most of this crew was brutally, systematically killed, either by the machines or by the traitor himself." 

Switch cast a confused glance at Neo's chair, though both he and Trinity knew she really didn't see how they sat, or the arm that was wound around Trinity's back and how Neo's hand rested against her hip. 

"Cypher betrayed us all," he continued his eyes on Apoc now, "sold me to the machines, caused the Agents to kill Mouse…and then pulled the plug on both you, Apoc, and Switch." 

Silence reigned. 

"I know, by all rights, you should be dead right now. This is hard to grasp for you, I realize, but you need to hear it now. You _were_ dead, technically. But Neo brought you back. I still don't know how he did it, and I don't think any of us could have done it." He paused, the dramatic silence building. "He is the One, my friends. We have found the One." 

Both Apoc and Switch stared, and Neo felt himself shrinking under their measuring gazes. But, strangely, he felt somewhat relieved that _someone_ wasn't staring at him as if he were some prize specimen with amazing superpowers here to save mankind. Even skepticism was a welcome relief from _that_. 

"I…don't know if I can explain what I did," he told Morpheus hesitantly. His mentor only smiled. 

"There is plenty of time for that later, Neo. I don't expect you to be able to tell me what you yourself don't understand at this point." He looked at his remaining crew for a long moment, realizing the wondrous gifts that had been bestowed upon them. Blessings. Tank was alive-hurt but alive-and Trinity had gone through some kind of transformation. Morpheus wasn't sure just what that transformation had been yet, but he was willing to bet it had something to do with his new protégé. Apoc and Switch were back from the dead. _Back from the dead._ Morpheus knew that he couldn't quite grasp yet just what an impossible possibility was now staring back at him from the faces of his beloved crew. And Neo. Neo was the One, in truth and actuality. He was now what he was always meant to be. 

And there was no time left to marvel. 

"Switch, Apoc. Can you work?"

At their affirmative nods, he continued. "I want Trinity and Neo working on dismantling the Sentinels and melting them down. You have your orders from before. Apoc and Switch-I want you to work on getting our normal power systems back online, as quickly as you can. Any structural damage to the ship that has to be repaired go ahead a repair, but leave what can be left. I want her flyable and _nothing else_ at this point. Tank, as soon as we patch you up, I want you helping them." He then nodded to Tank and the two of them descended the ladder down to the med bay, hoping that enough was left down there to patch up Tank's horrible burns. 

The four remaining crewmembers stared at each other for a long minute, then turned away to begin their respective tasks. 

Switch paused for a long minute, staring at the covered bodies of Dozer and Mouse. She sniffed, then turned haunted eyes to Neo. "Can't you do anything?" she asked, and in her words Neo knew that she had accepted him as the One, superpowers and all. He sighed and shook his head, then shrugged. "Don't know how," he replied. "Dozer…it had nothing to do with the Matrix. Can't help him." 

"What about Mouse?"

"He was shot multiple times," Trinity objected. "We all heard it."

"So was I," Neo said, frowning. He lifted up his bloodstained sweater a little bit to show his smooth, unbroken skin. "Not a mark on me, though." 

"But you refused to let the Matrix hurt you," Trinity argued. "Remember? I heard you. You said _no_. You rejected its forced reality. Mouse can't do that…or if he can, he hasn't learned how yet." 

"But…" Neo lifted up the blanket concealing Mouse's body. He raised the bloody shirt, to find a flat, pale chest that was covered in blood but no traceable rips in the skin. 

"His mind was shot, not his body," Trinity reminded him. "He died, Neo." 

But Neo was now thinking hard as he knelt there. "How did the blood get there if his body wasn't hurt?" he demanded. 

Switch answered, "The digital reality of the Matrix gave the cause of the blood-wounds. Wounds were inflicted by the machines and won't show up here. Only the effect shows-the blood. That was caused by the mind _believing_ it had been shot, not by actual bullets."

"He's probably bleeding internally," Trinity interjected. 

"Can we stop that?" Neo asked. 

There was a pause. Then, "Yes." 

"Send me in. I can't promise anything…but I'll try." 

Trinity obeyed, though she was the ranking officer on the deck, something that showed both Apoc and Switch the trust she had to have for their newest crewmember. 

"Won't Tank feel worse?" Apoc asked as Neo strapped his own feet in, "With his brother the only one who stayed dead?" 

Trinity shook her head. "I've known Tank for a long time. He's hurting, but the more of us we can save…we have to try." 

It took longer, both to find the tiny wisp of Mouse's mental self still trapped in the Matrix and then to fix him. Trinity very nearly pulled Neo out again as he disappeared from her screens, only to reappear again with a reassuring phone call…right in the hotel where Mouse had been murdered. 

"He couldn't come to me," was Neo's reasoning, "so I came to him." Trinity gritted her teeth, her jaw tightening, but said nothing as she saw the lifeless code that was Mouse suddenly begin to whir and change. He started glowing brighter and brighter, the glow of life, and then suddenly he was breathing in the Matrix, breathing…

Then he was led to the repaired exit phone in that building and he was opening his eyes on board the Nebuchadnezzar and nearly weeping with the pain of it. 

"Hurts," he whimpered. Trinity pulled Neo out for what she hoped would be the last time that day, and they all ran to Mouse. He was holding his stomach and coughing up blood. 

"It's in his windpipe," Trinity said calmly after assessing his vitals screen. "Keep coughing," she instructed him, "and you'll feel better." 

He leaned forward and continued to cough, sticky red-black trails of blood leaking from his mouth until he suddenly gagged and vomited. He hadn't anything much in his stomach but bile and blood, but he seemed better after purging. He caught his breath slowly, punctuated by small coughs, and looked up at them, confusion and exhaustion warring in his eyes. 

Apoc ran down to the mess hall and returned with a cup of hot water, which he gave to Mouse. The boy drank it carefully as Trinity scanned the monitors carefully, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He seemed fine. 

"Okay now?" she asked finally, unhooking him from the monitors and releasing the last of the bindings holding him to his chair. 

"Think so," he replied. "What happened?" 

"We don't have time now," she said. "The Neb's ruined and we need to get her running again ASAP." 

"What can I do?" 

They put him to work disassembling the Sentinels with Neo and Trinity, Switch and Apoc disappearing below to tinker with the electrical systems and try to get them operational again. For a long time, they all worked in silence. Trinity was grateful for Mouse's willingness to trust them and accept that they would tell him the truth when there was time. She was finding it difficult to even work alongside Neo, her hands sometimes coming perilously close to touching his as they tore at the mechanical beasts. There had been only the one moment of shared understanding too deep to explain in words, the sudden ache in her stomach that only intensified as he reached up with his head and found her mouth…. One moment. One promise. One kiss. And then Morpheus had been there, unaware of what he had inadvertently disrupted, and the pressures of fixing the Neb so they could continue to survive. 

But dear God how she wished there had been more time! 

She could feel his nervousness as he worked beside her, and how it made his fingers clumsy on the unfamiliar metal. These machines were put together with amazing precision, and they were strong. It was all they could do with wedges, hammers, and sometimes even torches and crowbars to dismantle the things into pieces small enough for their ship's melting chambers to accommodate. 

The power went out, all but the emergency lighting, after about an hour, after which everything came back on full-force. Trinity allowed herself a tiny, satisfied smile. Switch and Apoc had done it. The power was back. 

A few minutes later the duo trudged back up the ladder and into the main deck, weary but not exhausted. 

"Power online," Switch said unnecessarily, a tired grin lighting her features. Trinity had to smile back. 

"Structural report?" she queried. 

"She can fly," Apoc replied simply. 

"Good." Trinity stood up and stretched, hands on her hips, cracking her back and wincing as she noticed that her left foot had fallen asleep as she crouched on the floor of the Neb and pried apart the damned Sentinel. "Lend a hand here, will you? I'll go lay in a course." 

She left, feeling Neo's eyes on her as she climbed to the bridge. There she set a steady course in, toward the center of the planet. She knew Morpheus would want to find a supply ship at the very least, so they could repair the ship, and likely would want to go straight to Zion itself. They worked so well together because they anticipated the other's wishes and actions. Most of the time. Trinity smiled inwardly, a rueful gesture. Morpheus knew nothing of what the Oracle had told her. He had not asked, and she had not trusted him enough at the time to tell him of her own free will. He didn't know…

_"You will lose your mentor, child, just when you feel you need him the most." _

The words rang through Trinity's head as if it were yesterday she'd heard them. _"You will lose him, and it will take a great leap of faith for you to regain him…if you dare. But, young one, you won't have to take that leap alone. I foretold the coming of the One who will bring about the end of the Matrix a long time ago. That was my first prophecy, you know. Well. You'll fall in love, Trinity, and it won't be just any love. This will be a lifebond, something to last forever. And that man, the man you love, will be the One."_

The rest of what was said didn't matter as much to Trinity. She feared losing Morpheus, but it was talk of love that had unsettled her. Love wasn't in the stars for her, it seemed, and she nearly dismissed all of the Oracle's prophecy on that one point. 

But here it was; a love so deep that she couldn't explain it. It was terrifying in its intensity and wonderful in how it made her feel. She hadn't known it was possible to feel both frightened and exhilarated all at once, but now she knew it was entirely possible. Because she was both terrified and in love, and everything seemed to stem from the same source. 

Trinity sighed and turned away, setting the Nebuchadnezzar on autopilot and returning to her place near the Core. She returned just in time to find Morpheus and Tank climbing up the ladder, reappearing. Tank stopped in place, eyes bugging out, once he caught sight of Mouse working, bloodstained but obviously in no pain, right alongside the rest of the crew. Morpheus paused, but if he was surprised to see five crewmembers instead of four he said nothing. 

"Good, good!" he approved. "Trinity, did you lay in a course?"

"Yes, sir." 

"Heading…?"

"In." 

"Good." He nodded and cast his eyes about again. He was about to speak, but suddenly Neo grabbed for his head, his calm face suddenly scrunched into an expression of intense pain, and he exhaled violently. 

"What's wrong?" Morpheus asked, concern written on his features. Trinity was by Neo's side in an instant, her hands over his, and he leaned into her without realizing it, letting her cradle his head and run a soothing hand across his temples. 

"Head…hurts," he gasped out, and Morpheus nodded. 

"Should have expected this. Typically, if you work your mind too hard in the Matrix-even in the construct-you can get a headache. I'd say, One or no One, you stretched your mental muscles a little too far today. You're not used to all this." He nodded at Trinity. "Take him up to cabin nine, Trinity, and no arguments. You both need some rest. We'll all take shifts off until the repair crews from Zion meet us. I'll send word in to them right now." 

His tone brooked no argument, and so with slightly red cheeks Trinity guided Neo to his feet and led him to the ladder. At Morpheus' signal she nodded-as soon as she got Neo resting, Morpheus wanted to speak to her. She was too tired at this point to be worried about what he might ask.

*****

Neo knew his skull was going to split wide open, he was sure of it. Trinity's hands, cool and gentle, soothed it somewhat, but not much. He hardly knew where she guided his feet as together they climbed the ladder and she led him into the mess hall. She sat him down, rummaged in a rusty drawer, and withdrew a tin of white powder. Neo put his head down on the cold metal table, holding it in his hands and whimpering a little. Trinity watched, seeing the beaded cords of sinew and muscle vibrating in his neck and shoulders, the little vein throbbing near his temple. Quickly, she drew a mug of water and dumped a spoonful of the powder in it, stirring the mixture until it dissolved. 

"Here," she said, sitting next to Neo and urging his head up. "Drink all of this." 

He drank blindly, trusting her implicitly as she pressed the cup to his lips. Immediately the pressure in his head receded, and by the time he drained the cup it had reduced to a tolerable-though still painful-level. Cautiously he opened his eyes. 

"What is that?" he asked hoarsely, his muscles slowly relaxing again. 

"Damn strong painkiller," she replied calmly, mixing another mug for him. "Numbs just about anything." 

"What's it come from?" 

"You don't want to know." She gave him the second mug and he drank it off without hesitation, then sighed. 

"Feel better?"

"Much. Still hurts, though."

"I can imagine." She paused, one hand a warm pressure on his shoulder. "What you did in there was amazing." 

His eyes slipped up to her, solemn in his equally solemn face. Trinity smiled, the gesture tinged with sadness as her smiles always seemed to be, and kissed his forehead very gently before removing the mug from his hand. Neo did not see the kind of awed worship that so bothered him in the eyes of the others. In Trinity's actions and expressions he saw only trust-dear God-love, and a kind of weary regard. 

"Let's go." 

He followed her out of the mess hall and back up the ladder, moving under his own will this time. His head pounded but did no more than that, giving him none of the trouble with his senses that he'd been having before. The numbness that replaced the pain was blessedly soft and almost warm. 

"Where are we going?" he asked as they passed the floor with his own cabin on it. 

"Cabin nine," Trinity replied. "I've never been sent there before, but I guess this situation warrants it." 

"What do you mean?"

She sighed. "It's for us when we…need a break. When we can't keep going. It's like detox…rehab…therapy…I don't care what you want to call it." 

"Another simulation?" Neo asked with distaste. He couldn't bear being plugged into anything else this day…

"No." Trinity smiled briefly, inserted a console key into a lock beside the door-none of the other cabins were locked, Neo noted-and twisted open the hatch. "Everything here is terribly real."

Neo understood as soon as he stepped inside. Creature comforts. The ambience was unfamiliar, but relaxing just the same. He heard Trinity close the hatch behind them, felt her presence at his back as he stared blankly at the cabin before him. 

It was big-spacious enough for them to move around without bumping into each other, which was something he couldn't say for his own quarters below. There was a big, full-sized bed dominating the room, but it was sunk into the floor so as to give the illusion of uncluttered space. The floor was lightly carpeted, though the carpet was old and industrial, and the lighting was low and soft. 

And, wonder of wonders, in a little alcove separated from the main cabin by a curtain, there was a pool of steaming water. It was sunk into the ship at floor level, just like the bed, and looked suspiciously like a hot tub. Neo felt his aching muscles yearning for a bath as he caught sight of the tub, but he knew he would never stay awake long enough to finish one and likely would drown if he tried to bathe now.

"Tell me why we can't live like this every day," he mumbled. 

"Not enough room on the ship," Trinity replied, sitting in one of the two upholstered chairs and stretching out her long legs. "But we need it every once in a while…for real." 

Neo knew what she meant. They lived in a world, here, of ice and steel and soft living bodies weren't meant to hold up under the strain of such a harsh environment. He nodded, eyelids drooping, and heard Trinity's low chuckle for the very first time. 

"Come on," she said, standing up and guiding him over to the bed. He didn't need to be guided but relished the contact anyway. "To sleep with you." 

"What about you?" he asked as his knees crumbled and he fell back on the cushioned softness. 

"I have to give my report to Morpheus," she replied, "and then I'll be back." 

"Never stop, do you?"

"I could say the same thing about you." She coaxed him onto his stomach, and as he stretched out he felt her hands removing his boots. He made a move to do it himself, but she pushed him back to the bed. "Rest, or else your headache will come back." 

_That_ got his attention, and he lay back, cushioning his head on his arms despite the fact that he had a pillow. He felt Trinity rise next to him, and then her strong hands were on his head. "God," he whispered as she pressed delicate fingers against his temples, stroked gently, firmly down to the base of his neck. He closed his eyes and gave in to the wave of calming sensation as her fingers deftly loosened his muscles and he was borne away on a wave of warmth he hadn't ever experienced before. He was asleep in two minutes, and Trinity smiled softly to herself as she covered him with a blanket. 

She paused, then, wanting to kiss his sleeping form before she left but knowing it might wake him. The desires warred within her for a split second before she slowly lowered her head and touched his cheek with her lips very gently. He stirred but did not wake, and she left to go find Morpheus. 

*****

He was in the pilot's chair as she had expected, and he was waiting for her. 

"Morpheus." 

"Trinity." He eyed her, knowing he had her complete trust but wondering just what she was willing to tell him. He wasn't sure at all; had never been sure even though Trinity had been with him since very nearly the beginning. She was the first person he'd ever located, the first person he'd released on his own while attempting to build his own crew. She was special to him, and he had hope that now, with Neo, she had found something to make her happy. He knew nothing else in this world had ever made her happy. Maybe now her smiles would have more of joy and less of sadness in them. 

"You want my report of the incident," she said, guessing why he'd called her. 

"Please. I got Tank, too, but there were gaps in what he knew." 

"He wasn't there," she replied. "How could he know?"

"True enough." Morpheus waited. 

"Where do you want me to start?"

"When you left me."

She nodded. "We slid through the walls, down to the basement, where we lost Cypher. Apparently he got out before us, because Tank directed us to the same exit, only Cypher reached it first. He was already back on board the Neb when we got to the exit. The phone was ringing, and I picked it up and handed it to Neo. It must have gone dead just before it hit his ear." She didn't like this; it was too raw for her still to talk like this. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to continue. "I called Tank, but Cypher answered. He started talking-about being tired, about wanting to be somewhere else. He said the Matrix was more real than this world, and that you had betrayed us-and then he unplugged Apoc. He-he told me who he was going to unplug before he did it, just so I could watch them die." Trinity swallowed, forcing back the raw terror that threatened her. Fear wouldn't help now; it was all in the past, and almost everything had been fixed…

That didn't help her fear in the slightest. 

"When he got to Neo, he asked me if I believed. If I believed Neo was the One."

"What did you say?"

"I said yes." Her words were cold, but Morpheus had not worked with her for so long without knowing some of her personal idiosyncrasies, and he could see right through the dispassionate voice. "He said it would take some kind of miracle to stop him from unplugging Neo, and that miracle would prove it one way or another." She swallowed around the constriction in her throat and dropped her head, the next words coming out very low and quick. "I don't know what happened then; he stopped talking and suddenly the phone started ringing again. Neo made me go first, and when I came back Cypher and Dozer were dead, Tank was injured, and…" She shook her head. 

"Tank told me what happened. Go on."

"Tank wanted to unplug you, and I told him he could." She neither apologized for her actions nor tried to make excuses, for which Morpheus was grateful. Under the circumstances, he would have done the same thing, and he held no malice toward the crewmembers that would have sacrificed him for the good of Zion. "Neo stopped us, said he wasn't the One, but that he was going in to save you anyway." 

"What did you say to that?" Morpheus asked. "You _are_ his commanding officer."

"I told him he wasn't going to risk his neck, but he didn't listen to me. So…I figured if he was so set on committing suicide, I might as well go with him and maybe together we might be able to bring you back."

"Didn't like that much, did he?"

Her eyes were wary. "How did you know?"

Morpheus smiled. "He is a loner, Trinity. Up until now he has never had a reason to create strong bonds with others. You offering to help was an alien concept to him." His little smile grew bigger. "And I expect there was no little bit of misplaced chivalry in there, as well. He wanted to keep you safe." 

"Asshole," Trinity said, but with no real malice, and Morpheus couldn't tell whether the remark was leveled at Neo or himself. "I'm a resistance leader, Morpheus, no doll to be kept on a shelf." 

"I know that, Trinity." He lay a hand on her arm. "Please, continue." 

"Not much else to tell," she said. "We went in with a very loose plan-kill people and blow things up. It hinged on the fact that nobody has ever done anything like that before. They didn't expect us." 

"No, they didn't," Morpheus agreed. "You caught them by surprise, Trinity. It's the faith that did it, I think. They are machines. They can't understand the power of belief."

"Or the power of love." Trinity looked at him, then, squarely in the eye. "You are my father, Morpheus. I wasn't going to just sit there and let them kill you."

"You're right. They can't understand love-they can't feel it. They can't understand why you and Neo would risk your own lives trying to save mine." He leaned forward. "I want to tell you something, Trinity. It's something I have felt from the moment I was unplugged and began working for the resistance. Love, Trinity. Love and faith. They are the greatest weapons we have, and they are what's going to win us this war."

She nodded.

"But there is one more thing I want to know." 

Expecting his question to be about the reappearance of Mouse, Trinity waited. But that was not at all what Morpheus said. 

"Trinity, Neo died. I saw the flatline on the screen myself, and it went on too long to be a simple anomaly. He died, and then he came back. I want to know what brought him back." 

There was silence for a long, tense moment, as Trinity refused to meet the eyes of her mentor and captain. She took a breath, let it out again, and took another. Finally- "I brought him back." 

"How?"

"The Oracle told me a lot of things I didn't believe at the time," she said softly. "She spoke of…things I didn't understand. I don't believe in fate, Morpheus-at least, I didn't. I still believe we have choices we have to make, but I also believe that some things are just meant to be. I _have_ to believe that now." 

"You've seen something to change your mind?" he queried gently.

She nodded. "The Oracle told me…she told me that I would fall in love with the One." Trinity swallowed, still refusing to look up. She shook her head as she spoke. "I tried to deny it. I tried to tell myself I didn't love him-couldn't love him. I'm not the kind of person meant to rely on anyone else like that. But I couldn't stop it. And when he died, I knew he wasn't gone for good. And I knew I had to tell him…so I did. I told him that I loved him. I kissed him. And he woke up." 

Morpheus let her sit in the silence, let her run over her words again in her mind before he leaned forward and lay his hand over hers. "Thank you, Trinity." He said nothing more. Then, "That was all. I'll call for you and Neo when I want you again." 

Trinity knew a dismissal when she heard one. She rose and slipped away quickly, mulling over the discussion in her mind as she made her way back to the cabin and the sleeping Neo. 

*****

This door did not squeak as badly as most, and she did not disturb him as she stepped inside and shut the hatch behind her. Exhaustion, sheer and simple, washed over her as she dropped her shoes near one of the chairs and gently sat on the bed, tucking her feet up under her. What had Morpheus wanted out of the last bit of the conversation? She couldn't guess, unless he had been watching her with Neo and suspected something…

But she couldn't be sure. It was all so questionable, and nothing was clear and straightforward. 

Suddenly the brush of fingers against her knee made Trinity jump, and her head snapped around to see Neo awake-at least partly-and his sleepy eyes looking at her from under his short, stubbly hair. "For Chrissakes, Trinity, come to bed," he groaned, and in that laughably _normal_ sentence all the rightness Trinity had felt when she kissed him came flooding back.

She let him pull her down next to him on the wide bed, wrapping them both in the warm blankets already heated by his body. She felt her body relax as, still on his stomach, he nudged up next to her, her shoulder fitting into the crook between his chin and his own shoulder. He slid an arm around her waist, the contact making her entire body tense up before she forced herself to relax. Then he moved his hand sleepily and his fingers found the hem of her shirt and the warm skin beneath it. She melted at the touch of skin on skin, even something so tiny as his fingertips at her waist, and fell asleep tangled in the blankets and a warm pile of arms and legs, his gentle breath tickling her ear. 

She was the first awake, though there was no way of knowing exactly how much time had passed. All Trinity knew was that she had not yet been summoned by Morpheus, though she wasn't sure if that was good or ill. It bothered her, somewhat, that he seemed so eager to push Neo upon her. She hadn't been sure at all whether or not he would approve of her feelings for their newest crewmember. But like she'd said before in her debriefing, she wasn't in control of her own heart when it came to Neo. God knew she'd _tried_ to stop. It just hadn't worked. 

She opened her eyes and shifted a little, only to find that they'd somehow moved in their sleep and Neo's body was spooned around hers, his arms locked in a firm grip around her waist and one of his warm hands resting under her shirt, palm flat against her stomach. With a kind of fatalistic, resigned touch to her thoughts, she knew that they were in this deep now, together, no matter what happened. 

Ordinarily, Trinity knew she'd be dubious about the state of Neo's feelings and whether or not he loved her in return. But oddly enough, she didn't care. She knew that, by all rights, she should. She didn't. Maybe it had been the look in his eyes when he'd opened them after being torn out of the Matrix-alive. Maybe it had been the touch of his lips for the first time, or the way he heard her and obeyed while plugged into the program. How he had heard her, she still had no idea. He wasn't _supposed_ to be able to.

But Neo was the One. Trinity decided that _supposed to_ would have to be thrown out the window when it came to him. 

He shifted in his sleep, then, and she felt his lips and the tip of his nose brush against the back of her neck. She struggled to hold back a shiver at the slow movement of skin upon skin, knowing that it was useless. Her body awoke fully, then, and she became fully aware of Neo's presence behind her, his body solid and firm against her back and side, his arms encircling her in what was an extremely comforting grip. Desire tickled her stomach, completely unexpected, and she ruthlessly pushed it away. This was _not_ what she was supposed to be thinking. 

Dozer was dead. _Dead._ Cypher had betrayed them all, and were it not for the man lying unconscious behind her, wound around her, three more of their crew would be dead too. No, she corrected herself, _four._ Morpheus would have died as well, and she would have been left with an operator and a half-trained…whatever Neo was…on her hands, looking to her to lead them. She shivered. Though she kept telling herself that might-have-beens were useless to think about, she still couldn't help but dwell on the frightening spectre of what could have been. 

If Neo hadn't realized his full potential…

_If she had not found the courage to tell him the truth…_

All had hinged on the two of them. Their lives and the lives of their crew had been held in the balance, and it took them both acting as a team to save them. Trinity shuddered and put one of her hands over Neo's. It was too much to think about at the moment. Trinity closed her eyes again, waiting for sleep to reclaim her. 

"Wow." 

Neo was awake. 

"What?" she asked, turning her head slightly. His arms flexed around her, his hand moved on her stomach, sending another flutter of frightening want through her body. Trinity struggled not to react but then his lips brushed the back of her neck, on purpose this time, and she gave up as a shiver of pleasure ran up her spine. 

"Never thought I'd wake up to this," he said, a small chuckle in his groggy voice. He shook his head and she felt his breath tickle her hair. 

"Why not?"

"Never thought I had a chance in hell with you." His arms tightened. "But shit, you'll never know how much I wished I did." 

She rolled over then, not wanting him to let go but needing to see his eyes. Still foggy with sleep, he slipped to his back on the mattress and loosened his arms as Trinity rolled onto her stomach and propped herself up on an elbow, watching him. His arms still loosely held her, one hand lying casually along her jutting hipbone. 

He rubbed at his eyes and then blinked a couple times before focusing on her. "Christ, you're incredible." He paused. "You saved my life, Trinity." 

"And you saved mine," she said, her almost-smile playing across her sharp features. She paused, then leaned up from where she rested and kissed his forehead gently. "I love you." 

"I love you, too," he replied, and then he took her chin in his hand and very gently tilted it down so her lips met his. 

The dizzying explosion of sensation as their mouths touched took them both, held prisoner by feelings they could neither understand nor control. Neo knew that if he were the one balancing above her, he would have fallen on his face by this point. But with the firm pillow below his head, he felt safe enough to pull her closer. 

Trinity half-fell against his chest, one of her hands sliding up his neck and tracing the line of his jaw as she gave in to his pleading request for her to open her mouth. She wasn't sure it was the wisest idea, and _knew_ it was not the moment their tongues met. The sensations of hot and wet, of contact so close and intimate, blew all thought of reason from her mind. Neo's arms tightened around her and she pressed closer to him. In that moment she wanted all of him, her body demanding more as his hands unlocked from her waist and slid up her sides. 

With the last bit of strength she possessed, Trinity bit his lower lip and then sucked it into her mouth, effectively ending the kiss. He let her pull away slightly, both breathing much more heavily than they had been moments before, and they stared wordlessly into each other's eyes for a long, stunned moment. 

Then Neo sighed ruefully and reached forward again, kissing her lips gently and tracing the line of her jaw with the tip of his tongue. "Probably should stop…now," he said, though the regret in his voice was real. 

"Probably," Trinity agreed. Her eyes traveled over his face, and she saw the blatant desire there. She wanted to give in to it-how she wanted to! But this just was not the time…it couldn't be the time. They weren't supposed to feel like this, not when their ship was damaged so badly, they had three Sentinels in pieces somewhere in the depths of the Neb, they had come so close to death, and two of their crew lay dead-one of which had betrayed them all. No. This was not the time for learning how to love. 

Her body wasn't as clear on that point as her mind. 

She told herself the million reasons why this should not happen-Morpheus could call them at any moment. They needed time to grieve on their own. They barely knew each other.

None of it really mattered as her eyes locked with Neo's again and she saw, in the shared gaze, exactly what was going to happen. She surrendered to it with a sense that fate was taking a hand again, as Neo's hand slid down her back, grasped her thigh, and gently eased her leg over his body so she was straddling him. That was the last touch, the last coherent thought she was sure of before everything faded into bliss and the warm hiss of sheets and skin, differing sensations of hot and wet, silky-soft and rock hard. 

"Neo…" It was the one word she spoke in plea, just before the fall and the blessed numbness of release took her. His arms were hard against her, clasping her tightly, and she found herself wishing fervently that he would never, ever let go. 

They fell asleep like that, still entwined, too exhausted to do more than shift into a more or less comfortable position before surrendering to unconscious again. 

*****

"What are you thinking about?"

The query was breathed into her neck, eyelashes tickling her skin as he blinked. She shifted slightly and wrapped an arm around his head, hand playing in his short hair as she held him to her shoulder. He kissed the hollow of her jutting collarbone and waited for her answer. 

"Matrix code for a human RSI," she responded after a moment.

"Sha." 

"I'm serious." She stroked his hair absently. "I was thinking about different kinds of strength and how they translate when encoded." 

"Wow."

"What?"

"You really _are_ a programmer." 

He felt her almost-smile though he could not see it, and he could not tell what it was about her that made him so perceptive to tiny changes. It scared him, in a way, when he realized he already knew her habits and could pinpoint her expressions just by her voice. 

"Is that so hard to believe?" she asked.

"Programmers don't walk around kicking the shit out of G-men."

"This one does." She exhaled, and Neo felt her stomach flex. He smiled. Sometimes it was hard to remember she was human…but not when her warm body was pressed close to his without the hampering layers of cotton and wool. Though he knew it was impossible, at that moment he wanted nothing more than to lie there, just like that, for at least a month. 

"So what else do you do?" he asked, more to hear her voice and feel it buzz beneath his cheek than anything else. 

"Kick the shit out of cops, too." 

"Jump off buildings?"

"Mm-hm." 

"Fly?"

"In choppers." 

He paused. Then, "Do you cry?"

She tensed against him, and when she relaxed again a moment later he knew it was because she had forced her body to calm itself. "I used to." 

Using his newfound knowledge of her body, Neo ran a slow hand up her side and drew his fingertips across the curve of her shoulder. She shivered and pressed closer to him, her own hands warm against his skin. "Why?" 

"I thought it was real."

"Real?"

"The Matrix." Her tone was resigned, as if she really didn't want to talk about this but knew he wouldn't stop asking. It felt strange, so strange, to have loved her body but to not know these things about her mind, her personality. Neo didn't know how to go about working this relationship, a relationship that while still in its infant stages seemed already so permanent. It was the kind of fated circumstance he absolutely hated, but there wasn't a thing he could do about it. His heart was committed now, and he didn't know if it was possible anymore to live without those ice-blue eyes near him. 

"You mean…before?" he asked, his eyes flicking up. From where he lay, pressed against the incredible warmth of her chest, he could see the sharp curve of her chin and the barest line of her bottom lip as she spoke. 

"Mm-hm. I always knew there was something more, something I should understand."

"You thought Morpheus could give you those answers." 

"He did, in a way." She shifted, and Neo moved his thumb idly against the skin just below her breasts. "He set us free." Her voice hitched a little, a result of Neo's touch, and her arms tightened around him. He felt her muscles, hard just below the surface of her incredibly soft skin, and as they tightened the tickle of desire awakened once more within him. He stretched up and found her mouth with his, kissing her again with the kind of want that had ignited them before. 

Her palms were warm as they flowed up his back, light fingertips smoothing over the ridge of his shoulder blades, the smooth pink scars where his plugs had been removed. Trinity's own scars had long since healed and were barely visible, the only proof of her own unplugging in the single plug left in her forearm and the big data outlet hidden in the wisps of her dark hair. Neo licked gently at her lips, nipped them, and with a low chuckle of laughter she opened her mouth and deepened the kiss. 

"You were…" Neo let his voice trail off as she opened her eyes and regarded him, the ice-blue strangely warm. 

Trinity pressed her hips up against his, wrapping her legs around his and nudging her body close to him in a way that drove him mad. "You were virgin, too," she said with a small, ironic smile. "Technically." 

Neo grimaced and hid his embarrassment at forgetting the Matrix for a moment by kissing her again. Her arms came up to hold him and she rolled them over, instinct and reflex taking over once more as rational thought fled. 

They made love gently this time, slowly, for what fueled their actions was more than the mutual wanting that flowed through their blood. _This_ was what they were fighting for, Neo realized as he held what he knew to be the most incredible woman in the world close. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks flushed in a way he'd previously felt sure he'd never, ever see in anything but his dreams. But there it was-she wanted him. _Loved_ him, and Jesus, he was going to do all he could to be worthy of that love. 

It was not exhaustion that took them after their desires had been slacked this time, but a companionable sense of consciousness where they wished to do nothing more than lie in each other's presence. There was no need for talk, no need for anything but the most basic of human functions-heartbeat, pulse, breath. Neo felt so alive that he couldn't put into words the strange emotions that were coursing through his body. 

"_Nobody can tell you you're in love. You just know it through and through, balls to bones."_

She'd been right, and Neo grimaced when he realized the Oracle probably had known exactly what was going to happen between himself and Trinity. But, he questioned his own heart, did it really matter? Did it really matter what this one person knew or didn't know? It hadn't changed the fact that he loved Trinity and nothing could ever end the frighteningly wonderful feelings he encountered when she looked at him with those eyes, or touched him, or-dear God-when she…

A discreet knock on the door alerted them to somebody's presence. Trinity had been drifting, not quite awake nor completely asleep, and she jumped a little at the sound. Then she sighed, draped a blanket around her body, and rose from the bed. "Be right back," she said, and Neo could hear her voice dropping back into its usual professional impersonality. 

Trinity opened the door to see Tank standing outside. He was obviously surprised at her state of undress, though he tried to conceal it. Trinity resisted the urge to pull the blanket tighter around herself, knowing full well that Tank could not see anything and not really caring if he could. Human bodies were taken for granted here, where their lavatory was communal and there was virtually no place except bed to go for any privacy at all. 

"Wake-up call," he said with a lopsided attempt at a smile. "Looks like you needed it." 

"We'll be down in a minute," Trinity said, ignoring the gentle jab. "How are you?"

"Tired." He grinned again, and this time it worked a little better. "I get my own break as soon as you come down." 

"We'll hurry," she promised and shut the door.

Trinity waited a moment before turning back to the bed and the man waiting there. Tank would have no problem imagining what had happened in that room while the rest of the crew worked. She didn't feel guilty, exactly, because they had earned their break and had not simply sneaked away to fuck. Making love hadn't even been in the original game plan, though looking back she knew that it had been an inevitable conclusion to sleeping so close to the man she was destined to love. 

But gossip traveled fast on board the ship, and now that Tank knew what had happened in the comfort cabin everyone else surely would as well. Neo didn't know, as Trinity did, how big the bets were getting on whether or not anyone would ever crack the impenetrable shell she had built around herself. Every time they unplugged another person the crew waited for her to give some sign of anything other than friendship. Every time they entered Zion they watched her like a hawk, waiting for some free-born man-or woman-to turn her eye. 

She didn't like to think what kind of conclusions they might draw about her new relationship with Neo, but that couldn't be helped at this point. Holding back a sigh, she went to pull her clothes back on and urge Neo out of bed. 

Little did Trinity know that Morpheus had spoken with what was left of the Nebuchadnezzar's crew at length about her and Neo. 

"I know the kind of jokes you've all shared about Trinity finding a partner," he had said after she and Neo disappeared up the ladder. "Normally I wouldn't interfere-you're all smart enough to handle your own affairs without your captain telling you how to breathe. But I'm going to ask you all not to tease them, at least for a while." He let the request sink in for a moment before continuing. "I had some words with the Oracle after she saw Trinity. This was fated to be, and nothing Trinity could do would have changed it." 

"She was meant to fall in love with the One?" Switch's voice was somewhat skeptical, and Morpheus could understand why. What point did love play in a war?

"She is an integral part of him being the One," he replied. "It was Trinity who awoke in him whatever it is that makes him different from us. It was Trinity who broke the wall holding him back-Trinity who brought him back to life. She's having a hard enough time dealing with learning how to love. I'm asking you not to make it any harder on her than this already is."

After that there was much whispering among the crew about what this could mean to the ship in the long run, but though there were jokes and teasing among them, none of it ever got back to Trinity or Neo.

*****

The two appeared more or less at the same time on the main deck, and though they did not hold hands and there were no longing glances shared between them, it was obvious that a great change had taken place. No one had any doubt as to what that change had been, and no one dared defy Morpheus and call them on it. Tank doubted that he would have had the heart to do so anyway, noting the nervousness he saw underneath Trinity's calm exterior. She wasn't as cool and collected as she liked people to believe she was. Neo had cracked that calm façade-without even trying to.

They set to work without a word, Trinity with a welder and mask and Neo becoming a runner, taking bucketsful of the Sentinel parts down to the scrap room. He'd never been down there before, and when Mouse showed him where it was, way down in the bowels of the ship, he'd shuddered. It was a small room with a dingy conveyor belt, on which sat pots of some metal impervious to the temperatures they subjected it to. Into these pots-each held perhaps a half-gallon-they piled the bits of metal they'd pulled off the machines. Then the pots slowly moved into the incinerator, the doors closed, and they were melted into liquid metal. The metal cooled and was mechanically slid out of the pots in solid cylinders, stacked, and the pots swiveled around again to be refilled. 

Mouse and Tank took their time off as Neo and Trinity relieved them. Less time had passed than they actually thought-instead of the endless rest it had felt like, they had altogether slept (and loved) for a little more than ten hours. Why they hadn't slept longer, Trinity hadn't a clue, but she set to work feeling more awake and alive than she could ever remember before. 

Long hours flew by as they toiled, trying to repair the ship and tear apart the Sentinels before some remote-activated system could re-awaken them. Once the buckets had all been emptied, Neo knelt near the others on the ground and began picking at them again. His fingers grew numb both from the cold of the ship and from the repetitive work. They stopped for food twice, and had a short break when Tank and Mouse reappeared to relieve Switch and Apoc. Neo glanced at the console hanging near the Core, amazed that another ten hours had passed. Though he was tired, cold, bored, and his back ached from crouching on the metal floor, he hadn't really felt them.

Morpheus was in and out, sometimes helping Trinity, sometimes watching the shifting patterns of the Matrix, but most of the time up in the cockpit. Trinity said he was talking with Zion a lot, though she would not say whether or not that was a bad thing. The atmosphere was tense, hurried, and nobody seemed to know why. 

They reached the central motherboards of the Sentinels during the next shift as Switch and Apoc took a break. Everyone relaxed back with small smiles, too tired to cheer, as they tore apart the memory chips and dumped the mechanical brains into the last bucket. Mouse carried this one down to the incinerator and came back up twenty minutes later with a lump of cold, dull metal. Trinity opened a small panel in the wall, Mouse dumped it through, and Tank pushed a button. Neo heard a low clanking noise that quickly faded away. 

"It leads to the outer hull of the ship," Mouse said in explanation. "We just chucked it out into the sewers." 

Neo shook his head with a small smile on his face. If the machines wanted that hunk of metal and somehow were able to track it down, the Neb would be far, far away by the time they found it. 

Morpheus entered again soon after that, giving Trinity and Neo their second break. "We're to be intercepted by a mechanic," he said, and he looked wearier than anyone else could possibly imagine. "We're not going to Zion right now."

"What's the matter?" Neo asked. Trinity shook her head and led him away, her eyes promising answers. He followed her trustingly though he really wanted to speak to Morpheus and find out what had happened. 

They returned to cabin nine to find towels laid out for them-clean, but thin and tattered like everything else on board the Neb. The bed was rumpled differently than they'd left it, and Neo understood. The others had been here, just as they had. 

"There is only one cabin like this on the ship," Trinity said softly in explanation as she pulled her sweater and undershirt up over her head. "Where else would they go?"

Neo watched, enraptured, as she shed her clothing and slipped into the bathing pool. His body wanted her and was beginning to distract him, but he wanted answers. "Trin?"

She looked up at the first use he'd ever made of her nickname, but said nothing. 

"What was wrong with Morpheus? Why aren't we going to Zion?"

She sighed and held out a hand, beckoning to him. He didn't have to be told twice. In record time he was out of his clothing and had lowered himself into the pool, gasping at the water as its warmth latched onto muscles that had long-forgotten the feeling of being surrounded by this kind of heat. It was almost as incredible as the feeling he got when Trinity held him. 

"It's complicated," she said, her head leaning back against the lip of the pool. The tub wasn't big enough for them both to stretch out unfettered, but they entwined their legs, wet skin sliding against wet, facing each other amid the steam that rose and curled around their heads. "The situation in Zion right now is precarious at its best, and Morpheus needs to sleep. That's about as simple as I can make it." 

"Too simple," Neo said, shaking his head. That prompted a small smile from Trinity, and she shifted in the pool, the water lapping at their shoulders as they rested. 

"Morpheus is tired because he hasn't rested properly since…everything happened," she said. "He's not quite thinking clearly. I think, if you don't mind, that we'll cut this break short and I'll relieve him. He won't sleep unless I'm on duty." 

"He trusts you." 

"He trusts all of us," she objected. "But I'm the second in command." 

Neo allowed this, and Trinity continued. "The problems in Zion are new, and because of that, the government doesn't quite know how to go about fixing them." 

"There's a government in Zion?" Neo didn't know why that surprised him-cities had governments, and Zion was a city-but something as normal as elections and politics didn't seem to belong in this world, this reality. 

"Not a very powerful one," Trinity said. "They don't control much. It's there to calm the fears of the people. We are, technically speaking, living in a state of anarchy. They issue laws, but it's up to the people whether we follow them or not. Morpheus himself broke a long-standing rule when he unplugged you."

"What will they do to him?"

Trinity shrugged. "Under normal circumstances, he'd likely be officially reprimanded. There's not much else they _can_ do. But as he found you, found the One, it's hard to say what will happen." 

"Does Morpheus work for the government?"

"Oh, no." Trinity hid a smile at the absurdity of the question, but she knew the question was an obvious one for someone like Neo who understood nothing of how Zion worked. "Officially, we don't really exist. We're pirates, Neo, and we use our equipment here to hack into the Matrix and fuck it up, make life hard for the machines. We bother them, like little gnats. Sometimes we search for people-coppertops-that would benefit from being unplugged."

"Like me."

"Like you," Trinity agreed. "That's basically what we do. We answer to no one. We carry scrap metal back to Zion-that's how we eat, you know. Metal is a very precious commodity because right now scrap is the only thing we have to build with. But our real job is down there in the Core." 

"In the Matrix." 

"Mm-hm." She ducked under the water, holding her breath, feeling its warmth seep into her pores and relax the strain her muscles had been under for long hours. When she came up for air, Neo was watching her speculatively, waiting for her to continue. 

"So what's wrong with Zion now?" he pressed. 

"There's been a split," she said. "The fundamentalists still believe we need to wait for the appearance of the One before making any sort of plans or trying to fight the machines in any way. And now there's a group of young hotheads who want to plan an attack on the machines even though they don't know you've been found. They say the One is simply some kind of folk legend and that the old ones are afraid of change-afraid to fight." 

"Let me guess. These kids are free-borns." 

"Mostly," Trinity agreed. She sighed and stretched forward with one foot, touching her toes to his stomach. Neo grabbed her ankle under the water and pulled, a playful spark lighting his eyes. Trinity shrieked as she was pulled under, not noticing as Neo dove too, slipping around under the water until his mouth was level with hers. She struggled against him, but not very hard, and Neo used the opportunity to press his mouth to hers. 

Her arms went around him as soon as the kiss and the placement of his lips oriented her, and as she opened her mouth he breathed out, sharing his breath underwater. It was a strange kind of intimacy as they wound their legs around each other and held the shared breath of air as long as they could. With true regret, Trinity pushed her feet against the bottom of the pool and propelled them to the surface gently, breaking the kiss just as they rose out of the water. Beads dripped from her thick eyelashes, running down her cheeks like tears, and Neo ducked his head and licked at them with the tip of his tongue, his lips a velvety softness against her skin. 

Neither knew exactly why this love, this feeling of oneness held them so firmly. It gripped them, not allowing them to let go or even pull away from each other emotionally in any way. Neither wanted to. For Neo, finding warmth in Trinity's eyes and arms was like finding a home here in this alien land where he'd been sure he would never feel comfortable. For Trinity, just knowing he was there was the knowledge that she would never be alone again. For once in her solitary life, she was not alone. That thought both scared and exhilarated her in a way she'd never felt before. 

"So…" She tried to drag him back to the topic they'd been discussing, but Neo had decided her throat was more interesting than political struggles in Zion and his lips and tongue against her wet skin were more than distracting. He kissed a line up the side of her neck, scraped her soft earlobe with his teeth, and nuzzled the warm skin behind her ear very gently as she tried to gather coherent thoughts in her head through the warm fuzzy haze he was creating with his actions. "Neo-"

The last was a warning, and he pulled away with a small, foolish smile, knowing he really needed to understand what she was trying to tell him but wishing fervently that there was some other time in which he could be briefed. This was _not_ his idea of foreplay. 

"Dissidents in Zion, right," he said, pulling himself back onto the subject and releasing her body, knowing full well he wouldn't be able to pay attention with her tempting skin anywhere near him. She shot him an ironic look, and he knew she wanted to scrap the whole idea of talking just as much as he did. They didn't quite dare to, though, much as they both wished.

"The government Council is worried about what these people will do," she said. "I spoke to Morpheus earlier today. He hasn't told anyone but the highest-ranking Council members that you've been found-he wants to assess the situation in the city for himself before he makes any decisions. Technically, since Morpheus unplugged you, you are an automatic part of his crew. They can't place you elsewhere without both Morpheus' consent _and_ yours. Morpheus is worried about the Council's ability to keep you safe from any hotheads that might decide it's better for their cause if you are never found." 

"God."

"What?"

He shook his head. "Thought we had machines to fight. Never thought we'd have to fight our own-other people." 

"Nothing is clear right now," Trinity said, gliding toward him again, a sign to Neo that the information session was over. "Transitions take time." 

"Time," Neo agreed, as his arms reached out and snaked around her as she drew near. Their mouths met as she reached his body, her arms slipping around his shoulders with a splashing sound as water sloshed over the lip of the pool. The shine of dim light on wet skin was all Neo saw from then on-that, and ice-blue eyes that would never truly loose their cool exterior though behind it they burned with love. 


	2. Chapter 2

"Morpheus thought I was the One, once." 

"No shit." Neo craned his neck up to see her, propping his chin on his crossed arms. He was stretched out full-length on his belly amid the hopelessly tangled blankets, Trinity curled in a relaxed position slightly at an angle to him. Their heads lay near each other, near enough that either could lean forward and claim a kiss if they wished it. After they realized that resuming their separate quarters again was quite out of the question-there was no point in it, after all-they had gone to work with saws and welders, enlarging the bunk-box that made up Trinity's bed. Her cabin was slightly larger than Neo's, and it only made sense for them to make the most of the space if two adults were to share the same cabin.

She wasn't looking directly at him, but she was talking and Neo figured that was a good thing. Information about the problems in Zion, information about the other members of the crew-that was all forthcoming. But information about her private life, or before she was unplugged…even now, weeks after they'd first made love, she spoke little enough about that and what little she said was forcibly dragged out of her. 

But here she was, in the aftermath of love, speaking of her own free will. Neo didn't know whether to act enthralled or to pretend this was an everyday occurrence-didn't know how to keep her talking. 

"I'm serious." 

"What happened?"

She sighed and shifted, pulling one of their many blankets up to more fully cover her body. The Neb was always cold, but there were plenty of blankets for those who wished to make use of them. "I was raised a good Catholic by my parents," she said softly, the words filled with sarcastic intent. "My mother stayed home with the children, my father was an accountant and a religious philosopher of sorts." She shifted in the blankets again, and Neo reached out a hand to trap her fingers. He pressed his palm to hers, playing with her fingers and trying to lend her comfort to continue. 

"It was a very…patriarchal household. I never questioned anything my father said. My mother never questioned anything." She shook her head, knowing that the memories she shared weren't technically real, but…they had been real for her. They had been real, and even now, years and miles and realities separating her from them, they were still frightening in their intensity. "I heard things. Things that weren't really there. At first my mother didn't worry. She thought I had normal imaginary friends, like all children have at some point. But I guess something I told her must have frightened her, because she told my father." 

"What did he say?"

Her hand moved in his, rubbed against his palm, and she wound her fingers through his. "At first he didn't believe her, and then he thought that maybe I was like Joan of Arc. That I could hear the voices of saints." 

"Christ, how old were you?"

"Six, maybe seven." 

"What a mind job." Neo grimaced as he recognized the words as Cypher's. Well, they fit here, somehow. 

"For a while I was someone important in my household." Trinity shifted uneasily, and Neo wondered just was behind those words. "Then things started happening that made my father change his mind." 

"Like what?"

"The voices came more often." Trinity tried to free her hand, but Neo held it firmly. Her eyes flicked up to his, surprised-never had he refused to release her, ever-but she did not push the issue. Neo knew that a month ago she'd have given him hell for that very same thing, and that the only difference now was that she trusted him. She trusted him, and he wanted to give her comfort.

"What did they say?"

She shrugged. "It's irrelevant. They spoke, and then I started getting flashes of the future."

"What?"

"I'm not sure how to explain it. But I'd see something, someone walking down the street, and I'd know without anyone telling me that something was going to happen. I caught a pickpocket with his hand just above my mother's purse. I stopped her from stepping into an intersection right before a car ran a red light and there was a head-on collision in the middle of the crosswalk." 

"Jesus." 

"Scared my mother so much she didn't want to have anything more to do with me. She had four other kids and her hands full with all of them. One more-and a problem girl at that-didn't matter one way or another." She moved again, sliding her hand but not attempting to remove it. "My father took me up to the big cathedral in the city. The bishop there didn't know what to do, so he pronounced that I was possessed." She swallowed. "He wanted to try an exorcism, but my parents refused because they didn't want the blemish of having a child like me in their household. So they paid the bishop to enroll me at a Catholic boarding school even though I was too young to be there, really. I didn't learn a lot-it was brainwashing, not education." 

"What happened?"

"Morpheus found me before it was too late," she said simply, shrugging. "But it took a long time for me to work through what my parents and their beliefs did to my mind." 

"How old were you when he found you?" 

"Twelve." 

"Christ, they did wait a long time for me." 

"You were hard to find." She rolled over on her stomach, the blankets tangling around her lithe frame. "We also pulled you out fucking fast."

"What do you mean?"

"Morpheus waited nearly half a year from the time he first met me until he offered me the truth." 

"No shit? What'd he do?"

She shrugged. "Talked to me. I didn't trust anyone at that point, and twelve-year-old girls don't trust very easily anyway. But he seemed to know how I felt-knew what I had gone through with my parents. He knew so much that by the time he offered me the truth I didn't care whether he was the devil or not. I would have gone with him no matter what." 

"Wow." Neo nudged closer to her, feeling somehow that the physical bond they shared was nothing to the bond of trust that had allowed her to tell him all this. Yet still, after the whole story, she lay beside him dry-eyed. Her admission to him earlier, that she would not cry in front of him, seemed to be holding true. He didn't particularly want to see Trinity cry…but sometimes tears were healthy and had to be shed. He had a feeling that, whatever she had suffered and not told him, it was not finished yet. The little girl pushed out of the home by frightened parents-frightened of their own _child_-was still very much alive. And until Trinity dealt with her face-to-face she would never be truly at peace. 

*****

_"Enough!"_

It was a rough voice, a voice rough because it was unused to shouting. Daniel Evansworth didn't need to shout. Shouting wasn't part of the duties of a CPA, and at home all his commands were obeyed without the need to raise his voice.

"Voche," he said, and the words were stony. "What have I said about tattling? It is a sin. And you-" Here he stood up, over six feet of tall, wiry man, and grabbed his eldest son by the arm. "Michael, I have warned you about touching your sister!" He wrenched the ten-year-old around to face Trinity, who huddled in the corner, her curiously light eyes wide with shock as she watched her father toss around her older brother as if he weighed nothing. The black eye and split lip she'd received as a result of Michael's fists felt like nothing in the face of her fear, now. Her father was furious. 

"She is special, you hear me?" Daniel demanded, jerking the boy again by his arm. Michael bit out a yelp as his shoulder was wrenched by the quick motion, his feet not fast enough to keep up with the agile man holding him. "Do not strike her!" 

Trinity knew it was this preferential treatment that had caused her brother to lash out in the first place. She bit her swollen lip, knowing it was her fault he was bearing the brunt of her father's anger now. She heard the familiar jingle of the feared belt buckle, and tried to shy away. But she was backed into a corner and there was nowhere for her to go. Forgotten now, she stared, unable to move, as her father forced Michael to his knees on the ground with his arm bent behind his back, then touched his belt again. 

"Pay attention," the man said severely, "I'm not going to warn you again. This belt can come off, you know." He let go of the young arm abruptly, and Michael dropped completely to the ground, not even bothering to scamper away or try to defend himself as his father nudged his prostrate form with the toe of one shiny shoe. "Go. Get to confession before dinner, boy, and don't come back until you've told the priest all that you've done. Get!"

As her brother skittered away, head hanging, his left hand massaging his wrenched shoulder, all Trinity could feel was the overwhelming weight of guilt lying on her small back.

"I don't know what to do anymore, Daniel." That would be the voice of her mother. "The other children tease her when I'm not looking, or they avoid her. They can't stand to be around her. Even little Voche-and they used to be such good friends! I'm scared, Daniel. What happened today…with the accident in the street…it's not natural! There's something wrong with her. The good Lord knows I've prayed and prayed for some kind of help with her. I can't do it anymore. You have to help me, Daniel."

"I'll take her down to the bishop tomorrow. If what you say is true-I know how women like to distort the truth-then something has to be done. I cannot allow her to poison this household any longer." 

Sitting at the foot of the stairs, hidden from their late-night conversation by the curve of the wall, Trinity felt her heart growing numb. Her parents didn't want her. And her father was going to take her to see the bishop-of all the adults in the entire world (well, all the ones she knew) the bishop was the most frightening. He was tall, taller even than her father, and his nose had a large hook in it. He stared down at her as if she smelled bad, or as if she were something a dog had pulled out of the poison river…

*****

"Hello, Trinity." 

She remembered looking up into the face of a dark man. That was the first unusual thing, because there weren't very many ethnic minorities around the school at all. He was separated from her by the chain-link fence of the school. She felt it was there to keep her in rather than keep him out. Fanciful though she knew the thought was, she wondered if anything could_ keep him out of where he wanted to be. There was something about him… _

She looked up from what she had been doing-digging idly with a small stick at the bottom of the fence-and squinted against the bright sunlight. "How do you know that name?" she asked. Even the sisters who ran the school didn't know of her late-night forays into the school computer lab. They were one of the first Catholic schools anywhere to be wired to this new thing called the Internet. On it, people all over the world could talk to each other. 

She was on probation here they said, on account of her voices and premonitions. That basically meant she wasn't allowed to use the computers at all. But even nuns had to sleep sometime, and at three in the morning when Trinity herself couldn't sleep there was no one to tell her what not to do. She invented a handle for herself and began learning all she could about computers and what they were capable of. Eventually, she met people not very much older than she who showed her the new, exciting world of hacking and the endless possibilities it created.

Even at twelve, she knew this was what she'd been born to do. 

"I know a lot about you," the strange, bald man said companionably. He was dressed nicely, in a casual suit, and Trinity suddenly felt awkward in her Catholic school uniform. He wasn't very old. 

"Like what?" she asked, not willing yet to believe him. Trust was a long time coming.

"I know why you left your home at such a young age," he replied, still in the friendly, unperturbed voice he'd used before. It was like they were discussing the weather. "Why you don't want to make friends, why you're in trouble at school, and why night after night you sit at your borrowed computer…" 

Okay. He had her attention.

Trinity slowly climbed to her feet, her eyes never leaving the funny sunglasses he wore over his eyes-they had no earpieces, and she wondered how they stayed on. But more importantly-"How do you know all that?"

"How isn't important right now," the man said. "I'm going to give you a homework assignment, all right? You don't have to do it unless you want to."

"Won't get me in more trouble, will it?"

His smile grew. "No more than you put yourself in anyway. My name is Morpheus. Ever heard of me?"

She shook her head negative. 

"Well, the next time you go on-line, I want you to look me up. Then, look up any information you can find about something called the Matrix."

"I already know what a matrix is; we learned in math class."

"Not A matrix," he corrected gently. "THE Matrix. See what you can find. I'll stop by again sometime…" And with that he strolled away down the street, and Trinity was left feeling very confused. 

*****

"You're a terrorist, Morpheus," she accused the next time she saw him. He smiled, a very satisfied smile, the way some of the nuns would look at their favorite girls. Trinity felt a tiny sliver of warmth tickle her somewhere near her belly, and she didn't know what she could do to stop it. She was beginning to like him. 

But trust him? Not even close.

"I see you've been doing your homework," he said, and he knelt down to her level, not caring at all that his black suit-identical to the one he had worn before-was getting dusty. "What else do you know."

"Practically every government in the world is looking for you," she said, with no small touch of pride in her voice at her detective skills. "Nobody's ever been able to catch you."

"And what about the Matrix?"

Here she scowled. "Some people've heard of it. Nobody can tell me what it is."

"Maybe it's something you have to find out for yourself." 

She looked at him with purely childish skepticism. "I'm gonna keep looking." 

"You do that." He rose to leave. "I'll be around every now and then-tell me if you find out anything." 

He held to that promise, disappearing for weeks only to turn up when she least expected him. Always he would meet her near the playground fence, for that chain-link was her only window to the outside world. Never would he be allowed to visit with her inside the walls of the school, nor was she ever allowed outside. 

She could always tell him where he'd been in his absence-London, Seattle, LA, New York-and some of what he'd done. Never could she tell him more about the Matrix, except that high government officials seemed to be guarding the secret. 

It became an obsession-partly to find out the truth and partly to prove to Morpheus that she could find it. But always she came back to him empty-handed. 

The disturbing premonitions and voices had vanished a year or so after she entered the school, but they returned with the arrival of Morpheus in her life. She didn't connect the two, but did allude to her problems when she spoke to him. She didn't want to tell him too much, for fear that he would abandon her just as everyone else had.

She had found a strange sort of father figure in this bald terrorist with the funny sunglasses. 

Then one day Morpheus waited at the fence for her and she didn't show up. 

Trinity didn't know that, of course, and didn't know how he-in a fit of worry-had personally rigged her room with an exit line, hacking into the Matrix to do so from an old console within Zion. Then he'd gone up to broadcast depth in a courier ship and entered the Matrix right in her very room.

It was more cell than room, a tiny closet with cement flooring and a steel-frame bunk bed with a thin pallet and single blanket. She was curled in the corner, tall and skinny for her age, all knees and elbows but obviously in pain. She was crying. 

"Child, what's wrong?" he asked.

Her head snapped up, and though she did not seem shocked to see her terrorist-mentor suddenly appear in her room, she was certainly surprised. "Are you the devil?" she asked him through the tears that still clogged her voice. "Because if you are, I'm ready to go with you now." 

"Oh, Trinity." He shook his head and opened his arms, not knowing what else to do. Crying children were not part of basic training. "I'm no devil-I'm no less human than you are." 

She climbed to her feet, then, and ran the few steps across her bare cell of a room and into his arms. He hugged her, feeling lost, as she cried. 

"I hear things…see things…that aren't really there," she said into his shirt. "The sisters say I'm possessed-cursed. They want to-"

"Hush now." The words were almost a command, and Trinity gulped and stopped crying. She looked up at him with teary eyes. 

"But-"

"Trinity. I know you don't trust me completely yet, but it sounds like there just isn't time." He glanced around the cell, trying to speak quietly for fear someone on the other side of the walls might hear. "I know you have been looking for the Matrix, child, ever since I mentioned it to you. Honestly, that's partially what I had hoped. But I know the secret." He looked at her measuringly. "You are young yet, but I think you're ready. Do you want to know the truth?"

"Yes," she said immediately. There was no hesitation.

"It will mean giving up everything here and running away," he said, cautioning her. "I will be with you through it all, and you will meet others who know the truth. I can't promise you happiness."

"It has to be better than this," she said, her eyes suddenly hard. And Morpheus knew she had made her choice and wasn't going to go back on it.

Trinity remembered swallowing the red pill, remembered sitting there alone with Morpheus' promise that he would return as soon as he could. She remembered vague scraping noises, and suddenly three or four people just materialized_ in her cell, with some very strange-looking computer equipment._

She remembered the fear that one of her neighbors would wake up at the noise in her cramped cell-it was really too small for all the machinery and people in there-and call the sisters. She remembered her utter relief when Morpheus kept his promise and appeared again with his friends. She remembered everything, down to the cold feeling of the electrodes as they stuck to her skin, and Morpheus' calming presence, telling her that everything would be okay. 

Then it was a blur, for she closed her eyes one moment and the next she was gagging on some foul-smelling substance that was completely foreign to her and there was something in her throat preventing her from breathing. 

She remembered nothing else except for vague glimpses of bright medical lights and strange voices. Among them she could sometimes hear Morpheus, which always calmed her fears.

*****

Trinity woke bathed in sweat, Neo spooned protectively around her and his arms holding her tightly. She couldn't tell if he was awake or asleep, and she forced her shallow breathing to slow down. 

Memories. Normally she pretended she didn't have any, and that worked pretty well. This sudden rush of vivid scenes from her past had been completely unexpected, and though they came in dream-form, there was something so frighteningly _real_ about them that she didn't know what to think. They didn't have the flavor of her premonitions, or of the strange voices that had plagued her childhood. 

Neo's head moved slightly, and Trinity tensed. Or, tried to, but he brushed a sleepy kiss across the base of her hairline and she melted again. His touch usually had that effect, no matter how she tried to hide it. 

"Think of a good memory," he mumbled sleepily, and she knew he was awake…but not quite. "Something you," he yawned, "want to remember. Then they don't hurt so much." 

"How'd you get so smart?" she asked, but he was gone again and breathing deeply, his warm breath tickling the little hairs on the back of her neck. 

Sleep wasn't coming back any time soon, not after those kinds of memories, so she decided to take his advice. Closing her eyes, she thought back to a time a little more recent than what her mind had chosen to show her. 

*****

_"Think of her as a guide, Trinity."_

"I don't believe in fate." 

"Be that as it may, there are things she knows. Please, Trinity, don't fight me on this." 

She shifted, uncomfortable in the elevator. She'd been growing again, and her RSI reflected the changes. It had taken her a while to learn how to change her clothing to match her new curves and added height. Months on board the Promised Land,_ the ship she and Morpheus served on, had tempered and honed her into the pure essence of her true self. _

"Well well well. Hello, Morpheus." The Oracle had opened her own door, something Trinity found vaguely surprising. But then she figured that nothing should ever really surprise her again. "And your young protégé. The first of many." 

Morpheus nodded to her and gently pressed a hand against Trinity's back, urging her forward. 

Trinity turned her head and glared at him, then stepped toward the Oracle of her own accord. She saw amusement on the face of the older woman. "Hello, Trinity," the woman said. "I know you don't believe in me, or in what I see. But why don't you hear me out anyway?" She beckoned, and Trinity followed her into the apartment, leaving Morpheus behind to wait in the hallway.

"I usually train children in how to use the gifts they've been given," she said, "but none of them are here today. It's just you and me." She settled herself in a rocking chair and motioned for Trinity to seat herself, too. Instead of taking a chair, Trinity chose the floor. 

"Well, for starters, let's deal with a little misconception of Morpheus'," the Oracle said, lighting a cigarette and smiling. "You're not the One, kiddo. At least, not in the way he means. Eventually, you'll be part_ of the One." _

Trinity frowned. "I don't understand."

"You're fifteen. I don't expect you to." The woman smiled again, seemingly imperturbable. "Oh, child! Your unplugging was probably the kindest thing that ever happened to you. But don't worry; things will only get better from here on out." She rocked absently, her feet pushing against the shag carpeting. "You know, even though Morpheus will eventually find the One, you will still always be his favorite. You're his first-the first of his children, so to speak. He loves you as your father never really did." She sucked on her cigarette and blew a puff of smoke away from Trinity. 

"I can't shield you from pain. Make no mistake-you will lose your mentor, child, just when you feel you need him the most. You will lose him, and it will take a great leap of faith for you to regain him…if you dare. But, young one, you won't have to take that leap alone. I foretold the coming of the One who will bring about the end of the Matrix a long time ago. That was my first prophecy, you know. Well. You'll fall in love, Trinity, and it won't be just any love. This will be a lifebond, something to last forever. And that man, the man you love, will be the One."

*****

The only thing she'd told Morpheus was the first admittance-that she was not the One. 

It had come in the hallway just outside the Oracle's apartment, her eyes searching him as she spoke the words she feared would cast her away from him forever.

"I'm not the One, Morpheus," she'd said, a mixture of dread and relief filling her. "I knew it all along, but I was afraid to tell you. I'm not the One." She looked up at him, still shorter than he. "I…will I have to go back again, now?"

"Of course not!" he said, and his gentle hand was laid on her shoulder. Its pressure was comforting in this world she didn't understand. "Trinity, I could honestly care less if you were the One or not. You're the most promising young programmer we've ever trained. You move with unparalleled grace and speed in the Matrix, and you have learned to free your mind in ways that most of us only dream. Trinity, One or no One, we could not bear to lose you now. In fact…"

"In fact what?"

"In fact…" He started walking again, and she jogged a few steps to keep up with him. "I'm leaving the Promised Land_ when we reach Zion, Trinity. I've saved up enough to buy my own ship-she's waiting for me even as we speak. She isn't much, but…well. I was wondering if you would like to come with me. As my second-in-command."_

"Yes!" There was never any hesitation, and Morpheus chuckled at her eagerness.

He would never quite understand.

*****

"And you think you're ready for this, do you?" Trinity chuckled. Time and the quiet calm of the past few months had added a certain warmth to her character that had never been there before. The crew had always loved her-that was never a question. She had always been there for them, always a shoulder to lean on when they needed it. But now there was something distinctly different about her, and Tank knew what it was. More than being in love, more than finding the other half of her soul-she was just plain _happy._ And that happiness was contagious, just as the spark of excitement was contagious when Morpheus said there was an anomalous figure within the Matrix that he wanted to check out. 

Neo's fear and uneasiness within the Matrix had vanished quite some time ago, and he now fairly itched to be inside it whenever they had a job to do. Slowly, the rest of the crew had caught his enthusiasm and used it to combat their fears of returning to that place where they had died-or, in Trinity's case, almost died. It wasn't easy, and it took a very long time. But now, nearly a year after their big trial, things were almost back to normal. 

Well, changed, but still. Nothing stays the same for long. The world doesn't work that way.

And Tank, though he missed his brother just as if a piece of his own soul had been torn away, knew that this new-era, if you like-was much better than the previous one. 

"Ready for anything," Neo said, flinging himself into his chair and resting his head back against the cushioned restraint. 

"Hold on there, tiger, it's not time yet," Switch said as she flicked her eyes back up to the gleaming code of the Matrix. "You have to be briefed first."

"The Matrix doesn't wait around forever," Neo countered. "If we don't hurry, we might lose it." 

"Won't lose nothing," Apoc argued, joining in the fun. For fun was all it was-Neo was subordinate to them and he knew it. That they let him get away with harping on them was because he was now family, and he knew that, too. Time had taken away their awe at having the One as their crewmember-time, and Neo's own constant reminders that he was still as green as anything. "Whatever the hell's been doing this, it's been going on for a long time. It won't stop in the next half-hour; trust me." 

Neo made a face but sat back up, waiting expectantly as Trinity turned to face them. Mouse ran in, late and still rubbing sleep from his eyes, and she hid a smile as she turned disapproving eyes upon him. He gulped and crept to his own chair; Trinity still had the power to cow others when she chose. 

"Okay," she said. "Morpheus is busy right now, so I'll handle the briefing." She motioned to Tank, who tapped one of the Matrix screens and it froze. "Here's what we're dealing with-an anomaly in the Matrix. Somebody's been tampering, we think, and we don't know who." She looked at them, measuring each reaction. Nobody showed the faintest traces of fear, only competence and a faint eagerness to be on their first real mission since hobbling, broken, into Zion nearly a year before. 

"It's been turned back in time…sort of. It's a time that never really existed." 

"Damn hard to load into the Matrix things that don't really exist," Tank broke in, and everyone nodded. They'd heard him rant often enough about the kind of electrical equipment they'd created in the construct and then tried to load into the Matrix. If it didn't exist within the perimeters of the Matrix's operating system, it took a lot of skill and a lot of time to make it exist within the Matrix. 

"But someone has dumped a bunch of stuff that doesn't really exist right into one little corner of the Matrix," Trinity went on, allowing the interruption. "Someone is changing things-and we have every reason to believe he is changing them from the _inside._" 

Dead silence.

"In-inside?" Mouse finally stuttered. "Inside? You mean…"

Trinity nodded. "That's exactly what I mean. Someone who is still plugged into the Matrix and conceivably knows nothing about the real world is _changing_ things." 

"Shit." That was Switch. She shook her head wryly and the tiny hint of a smile touched the corner of her mouth. "Here we go again."

"Neo and I will be in co-charge of this mission," Trinity continued. "It's to give him practice in there so eventually he can spot potential candidates for unplugging and bring them out himself-like Morpheus did for me and we did for the rest of you. We're hoping that cuts down on the amount of time it takes searching for potentials. If he can speed-read their codes from inside the Matrix…" 

"We're not sure yet if it'll work," Neo interrupted her, a worried frown crossing his face. He didn't like anyone placing too much weight on abilities he wasn't sure he actually possessed. The stuff he _knew_ how to do-well, that was fine. They wanted someone to fly, well, he was their man. They wanted to kick the shit out of agents, well, he'd do it happily. But every time they tested something new it brought him great anxiety that only Trinity's calm presence and quiet faith in him could ease. 

"That's one of the things we're going in to see," Trinity answered, her eyes watching him for a moment. Whole conversations went on between the ice-blue and doe-brown of their eyes in the space of a few seconds. Then she turned back to the rest of the group. "We're entering right in the middle of the anomaly. There are no exits set up in that area, Tank's pretty sure. So we have two choices for getting out. One-we're going to try another experiment and see if Neo can _will_ exits into being." 

"They say that's how the original exits were constructed to begin with," Neo said, almost apologetically. "The first One did it." 

"If that doesn't work," Trinity continued, "we'll have Tank isolate our codes and pull us out manually. It takes time and patience, so we're hoping we won't have to leave in a hurry." Her eyes flicked around to everyone. "I realize how risky it sounds. Morpheus wouldn't even be letting us risk it, but Neo's going to be with us."

Neo wanted to object, to tell the full truth she wasn't saying, but he knew better than to backtalk Trinity when she was in her superior-officer mode. What Morpheus had _really_ said was that he had faith in Neo to get them out quickly in an emergency and he had faith in Trinity to protect all of them-even Neo himself. It was only her damn selflessness that had kept her from saying it, and Neo knew she wouldn't thank him to bring up the point here, with everyone listening. They knew she was indispensable to the crew. Why reiterate the point?

They all strapped in at that point, hooking their own foot restraints and then leaning back in their chairs. Tank went around the circle, plugging them in, and then hit the button that would send them away. "Peace be the journey," he said as their alpha patterns changed and they were sucked into the computer-simulated world that was the Matrix. 

Suddenly, Tank frowned. Trinity's code was different than it had been the last time he'd loaded her into any sort of program…but that had been months ago. Trinity had preferred working with her hands in the real world to reentering the Matrix, and the few times she _had_ gone in it was to train Neo in the role of Operator. Everyone on the ship had to know how to do everything they possibly could, just in case…

Tank pulled up the huge database of human code on another screen and ran it against the change in his friend's RSI. It clicked to a stop at the exact match, and Tank stared at it for a long time before banishing the information and switching off the monitor. If she had decided not to tell anyone, well, then he supposed that was her own prerogative and nobody else's.

*****

They opened their eyes to a forest. 

"Woods?" Mouse said, obviously surprised. He, privately, had been expecting them to materialize in some dark, shabby room full of expensive computer equipment, next to a brilliant hacker kid who would look up and say, "What took you so long?" and then laugh at their dumbfounded expressions. 

But no. They were in a forest, a forest of the tallest trees Trinity had ever seen. They were so wide that Trinity doubted the entire crew, holding hands, could span their width. Spanish moss blew green, lacy tendrils around them from some of the lower branches. Even the light in here seemed vaguely green, and very dark though she knew it was still daylight. The floor of the forest was carpeted in moss and bracken, little pale flowers twinkling up through the green. There were some bushes, some scrub, but mostly just the giant trees and a great silence so complete that it sent chills up her spine. On the ship it was never completely silent. They could always hear the whirr of the engines and the dull hiss of recycled oxygen being pushed through the ventilation shafts. There was clanking whenever people moved, squeaking doors, echoing voices, the click of keyboards…even during quiet periods the ship was never _silent._

"Whoa." Apoc slowly drew away his sunglasses, staring at the forest around him. "I…whoa." 

"No kidding," Neo said, turning a slow circle. He then went up to one of the trees and put his hand against the bark. It felt smooth and old under his palm. 

His head and Trinity's jerked up at the same time, and immediately at that action Mouse ducked behind a bush and Switch and Apoc drew out their guns. 

"Something's coming," Trinity said. "I can hear it." 

"Is it dangerous?"

"Can't tell," Neo said, his forehead creased with lines as he scowled in concentration. "Damn it!" 

"Why not?"

"I've never seen this code before."

They all ducked behind the bushes and trees, then, and Switch and Apoc heard the noise too. It was pounding…pounding like drums and cymbals, but with a strangely light quality. They stared out from underneath the scrub where they hid, only to see the flash of hooves pass by. The creature, whatever it had been, didn't stop or even pause. 

As the sound of its passing faded into the distance, they pulled themselves out of the bushes and stared after it, though the trees were in the way and they could not see. 

"A horse," Mouse said dully. "We got ourselves worked up about a horse."

Neo shook his head stubbornly, the fact that he hadn't recognized the animal bothering him greatly. "Not a horse," he said. "I've seen the code for horses; I'd recognize it. This was something else." 

Trinity touched his shoulder briefly, then glanced at the others. "Let's get going," she said. 

"But where?" Everything looked the same, no matter which way they turned. Trinity turned to Neo, who merely shrugged and shook his head.

"So follow the beastie," Apoc said, gesturing in the general direction the animal had gone. "Maybe _it_ knows what it's doing." 

As there were no better ideas forthcoming, they decided that traveling in the general direction the creature had gone was no worse than anything else they could do. So they set out, walking cautiously, though they neither saw nor heard anything else, alive or dead, save the trees and an occasional rotting log. 

After about an hour of this, sliding in their boots on the damp moss and sweating in their leather, Trinity finally called a stop and pulled out her cell phone. 

"Tank."

"Was wondering when you'd get around to asking me for a change of clothes," he laughed into the microphone.

"You might have warned us." 

"Didn't know where you'd be until you were already there," he said. "Check the other side of the tree on your left."

Moments later Tank, true to his words, send them clothing from the construct. It looked very like what they wore on the ship, though the clothes he sent were warmer, cleaner and not torn or frayed in the slightest. 

"Better?" 

"Better?" Apoc and Switch quickly agreed. Neo and Mouse exchanged amused looks-neither chose to wear leather. But changing their city boots for treaded hiking boots was welcome, and they changed their clothes too, to fit in with the rest of the crew. 

They left their old clothing in a heap at the base of the tree. It wasn't real anyway, and if they needed another change they could always ask Tank for one. Trinity waited until everyone was dressed again, and then they resumed their hike through the woods.

It was less a hike and more a forced march, Neo decided, because they walked so fast he couldn't really see anything. He was fast, but not fast enough to keep up with Trinity, concentrate on not tripping over the roots and stones in his path, _and_ watch the entire damn thing encoded so he could look around him at what had happened to the code to make this place real. 

A huge shadow passed over them once, and they looked up to see a bird so giant that a human could easily have perched on its back. Trinity had done nothing but stare, Switch and Apoc had trained their .45's on it (and what good would they do against such a huge beast?) and Mouse had sworn vividly. Neo had done nothing, obviously trying to read its code like he had the other beast, and the bird itself had ignored them completely. 

In several places they came across trees with long gouges in them, as if something with very sharp claws or horns had repeatedly beat itself against the bark. Trinity ran shaking fingers down the gouges in one of the trees. Sap oozed slowly from the slices, and strips of bark hung in tatters at the base of the tree. The gouges were easily an inch thick. 

Finally, as the group was beginning to despair of ever getting out of the damned forest, a new sound hit their ears. It was water.

Water. 

Trinity glanced back at Neo, who shrugged and started forward. They followed, and as they topped the rise of a hill, the forest opened up and they were standing at the shore of a fast-moving river. The other bank was a wall of rock rising at least thirty feet up into the air. Cool, leafy trees blew in the wind atop it, but they knew it would take a lot of work and more equipment than they had to actually scale such a cliff. Unless Neo was willing to fly them up there.

"Whoa." 

"What?" Trinity whirled, turning on Neo, who had spoken. He touched his temple lightly, as if it pained him, and then pointed down the river, where the water sparkled briefly before curving round a bend.

"It…whatever it is, it's down there." 

"How do you know?"

"Just changed something," he said. "I think…I think he knows we're here."

"Damn." Trinity pulled out her phone and dialed Tank again. 

"Operator."

"We need boats, Tank," she said.

"What kind?"

"Something fast," she replied. A second later two boat appeared, half-in and half-out of the river. They were either skinny rowboats or fat canoes, and they were made of some dark, shiny wood she could not place. 

"I was thinking more along the lines of an outboard motor, Tank," she said, a touch of sarcasm in her voice as she spoke into the phone.

"So was I," he said back, his voice warring between confusion and shock. "That's what I sent you!"

"Then what are these?"

"It _changed_ on me, before they reached you," he insisted. "Fuck, what's going on?"

Trinity paused, then shrugged. "Never mind, Tank. This is fine, for now."

"What's wrong?" Switch asked as Trinity stowed her cell phone. 

"This isn't what Tank sent us," Trinity replied, staring dubiously at the boats. "Neo?"

He shrugged. "They're fine, as far as I can tell. Just boats." 

"Okay, then." Trinity took hold of one of them and shoved it all the way into the water, her boots getting wet but not leaking-thanks to Tank's foresight-as she stepped into its wide bottom. Neo followed her and Mouse followed Neo, obviously more comfortable close to the One in this place. Switch and Apoc took the other boat, and they headed out into the river. 

They had oars, much like canoe paddles, but the river was carrying them swiftly and they used them only to steer as the current brought them closer and closer to where they wanted to be. 

Nobody had any idea of the passage of time, but the sun had moved considerably in the sky by the time the current slowed down. They were deep in the forest by this time, and the embankment on the other side of the river had dwindled until it was just the same on both sides. Grass grew up to the edge of the river, swaying as the clear water caught its bent tips and pulled it this way and that in the little eddies their boats caused. Mouse was nearly asleep.

The current slowed and the water grew deeper, or so they assumed. It took on a thick quality though it was still clear as anything, and in the shadows of the overhanging trees it seemed deep, green, and murky. Occasionally a small splash alerted them to the possibility of fish, or frogs, or something else…other strange creatures-ones that lived in the water?

"I think I like the city better," Trinity muttered.

"Me, too," Neo replied, almost in her ear, and she tensed. She hadn't realized he was that close. "Sorry," he said, a little sheepishly. 

"It's okay. Just jumpy."

"I can understand that," he muttered, and then sighed. "This is _my_ world, Trin, but it isn't at the same time. Somebody else is doing this."

"You're still the One, Neo. Nobody can take that away from you." 

Neo glanced at Mouse, asleep and snoring in the back of the boat. He turned and placed a quick kiss at Trinity's throat and sighed. "You're my faith." 

She just laughed.


	3. Chapter 3

Three days into the slow float down the murky river Tank lost sight of them in the Matrix code. Morpheus was worried, but not enough to pull them out, for they still communicated well with the cell phones. Why they were no longer showing up on the monitors was a mystery, yes, but one he felt they did not have to answer at the time. He and Tank kept a continual watch on the Core, one catching a few hours' sleep while the other monitored alone, neither leaving the main deck to do anything except sleep and eat. Morpheus even slept in his loading chair occasionally, though he trusted Tank completely.

Three days was a long time to be in a boat. 

They stopped several times a day, pulling up on the shore to stretch their legs, eat whatever they had Tank send down to them, and generally try to act human. Tempers were running short, as the long hours of drifting down the river were plainly boring. 

Boring, and yet they felt guilty at the boredom. This was _supposed_ to be a never-been-tried, exciting mission. It was a mighty search…but one they were beginning to think differently about. Switch snapped at Apoc, who in turn harped on Mouse for acting like a kid. Neo pulled into his own little world, refusing to talk much to anyone as the sun trickled down through the trees, dappling them with ever-changing patterns of light. Mouse sulked, afraid of saying anything for fear of being corrected. Trinity tried to get through to Neo for a little while before giving it up and letting him brood. 

She knew he was bothered by his inability to innately understand this place, and she could sympathize. Finding something you simply _could not_ do-well, that was always difficult to handle. And Neo had been trained to approach everything in the Matrix as his own plaything. Now the toy was seemingly out of the hands of its owner, and it was natural that Neo didn't like that one bit. 

Natural, yes. But Trinity still didn't have the patience to coax him along like a spoiled child. He needed to understand that, just maybe, there were things in the Matrix that even the One could not control. She almost wished he was back to acting cocky about his abilities; even a jackass would have been preferable company to the silent form beside her at this point. 

And to add to all that, Trinity wasn't in the best of moods, either. 

It had badly shaken _her_ faith as well, to see something that Neo did not understand here within the Matrix. _If we even _are_ in the Matrix, still,_ a little voice inside her head muttered, and Trinity firmly put a stop to that frightening thought. Because, if they were not in the Matrix, Neo could not keep them safe. If they were not in the Matrix…where were they? And how would they get out again?

The answers didn't seem likely to come anytime soon. Neo insisted that the source of all this unfamiliar code was ahead of them, and that the river was taking them closer. _But how much longer?_ Trinity thought. She and Apoc, at a loss without something to occupy their hands and minds, had taken to paddling the canoe-boats until their arms tired. This took up hours and occupied their arms, but left their minds frightfully empty-a prime situation for thinking. 

Trinity didn't want to think anymore; she was tired of thinking. She wanted to _do_ something, not simply sit in the bottom of the boats Tank hadn't sent them and worry about what they would find when-if ever-the river ended.

They slept a lot, though never all at the same time, and Trinity and Neo had taken to sleeping at different times. This meant that they did not sleep _together_, and Trinity preferred it that way. While Morpheus would not fault them for curling into each other's arms to sleep, she did not want the physical closeness when Neo was so clearly trying to separate himself emotionally and mentally from them. 

And so the five crewmembers floated down the river and waited. 

Occasionally they saw the flicker of movement off in the deep woods beyond the riverbanks, and it was obvious that Neo didn't know what had moved. The trees, thick and dark, came all the way up to the water's edge, grass trailing in the current, but nobody could say for certain whether or not this was normal behavior for a forest. These were city slickers, computer savvy and environment be damned so long as the system held. 

They were utterly and completely lost in this place.

Trinity woke early in the morning of the fourth day to see that the trees had grown even closer together, only tiny speckles of soft golden sunlight winking through the verdant canopy. She sat up and blinked sleepily, rubbing the stickiness from her eyes. It was then that she realized that, though the boats were rocking softly in the sway of the river, they weren't moving forward anymore.

"Shit," she mumbled and leaned over the edge, the polished canoe-boat rocking dangerously with her movements. Graceful though she may be on rooftops, she had not managed to duplicate that grace in a water-bound vehicle. There, in the murky depths of the river, beyond the shine of her own muted reflection, she saw the green, curling threads of water-plants. They held the boats tight; the oars were stuck and though the current moved lazily through the weeds the boats were far too big and cumbersome to follow the fluid example.

At her voice Mouse and Neo stirred-strange. For the first time since entering this damned place, they had all fallen asleep at once. Even Switch and Apoc were just waking. Trinity didn't like it. This smacked of-

"Took you long enough."

The voice sounded infinitely amused, and much more childish than Trinity would have expected. Her eyes jerked upward, toward the source of the noise, and there on an overhanging limb perched a child.

_Child_ was the only word Trinity could use to describe the creature, though she was a little too old to honestly be labeled such. She wasn't near an adult yet; of that Trinity was positive. Younger than Mouse, definitely, though how much Trinity could not tell. 

"Who are you?" she asked. The girl was straddling the branch, the soles of her boots dangling freely about ten feet above Trinity's head. 

"We're travelers," Trinity replied, glancing at her comrades. They were all awake and watching the exchange very closely, but all of them-even Neo-seemed perfectly content to let Trinity take the lead. "Can you tell us where we are?"

The child smiled and leaned over to the side, hooking her knees behind the branch and swinging. Trinity, Switch, and Apoc all made gestures as if to catch her as she fell, but she caught herself with her knees and swung above them, a long, dark braid falling loose from her head and dropping like a tail. 

"_Jesus_, don't do that again!" Mouse said, glaring as he caught his breath. Trinity had actually stood up in the boat, and now she cautiously lowered herself to her knees, not taking her eyes off the child dangling above them.

"I can't get hurt here," she said, swinging from the branch idly and seemingly not caring that she dangled over the river.

"Why not?" Trinity asked. 

The child shrugged. "Because. You probably wanna get out of those canoes now." She smiled and pulled herself back up onto the branch, bits of moss falling into the water as she scraped them with her shoes. Agile as a squirrel, she lowered herself from branch to branch and finally landed on the grassy bank. 

"You sent us these boats," Trinity said. It wasn't a question. 

The girl nodded, unconcerned. She watched with calm, childish eyes as Trinity slowly stood up and the canoe wobbled frighteningly again. 

"Keep three points of contact," she said, reaching for a blade of grass and plucking it down near the root. "Two hands and a foot, or two feet and one hand. It steadies the canoe." She set the grass between her thumbs and blew, the resulting whistle sending chills down everyone's spines. Mouse actually winced as he followed Trinity's lead and climbed onto the bank. 

"Why didn't you just let our operator send what he was going to send in the first place?" Trinity asked, dusting off her hands-the side of the boat had been grimy where she'd gripped it.

The girl shrugged. "Too loud, those boats he was gonna send. Besides, you wouldn't have seen my forest." She smiled and held out a hand, the gesture somehow encompassing the river and trees at once. "How d'you like it?"

"It's amazing," Trinity said honestly. The child beamed. 

"Thank you. I tried very hard." 

"How did you do it?"

The girl paused and tilted her head, watching Trinity. It was a childish gesture, one of a small child appraising whether or not to trust an older person. Trinity saw this, and tried to look as non-threatening as she possibly could. It wasn't easy-she was more used to looking threatening.

The silence gave all of them a minute to study the girl who stood before them and had, apparently, brought them all this way into a world of her own creation. For what purpose, no one could guess. She was younger than Trinity had originally thought-young enough to still be called child-and even though she was dressed like something out of _Peter Pan_ she looked ordinary enough. She had long brown hair that fuzzed around her face, a sure sign that it would curl if it were not pulled back in the confining braid. It lay in a thick spiral down her back, the curly tail ending just below her tailbone. Her eyes were a light green-blue that somehow reflected the dark freckles smattered across her nose and cheeks, and her nose and forehead were lightly sunburned. 

"I confuse you," the girl said finally. "You don't believe me; not really." 

Trinity merely stared. The girl smiled. "That's okay. You'll _have_ to believe me someday." And with that she beckoned them with one of her little fingers, dirt under the short, broken nail, and began walking into the forest.

"Wait!" Neo said, speaking up for the first time. "Where are you going?"

She turned back around. "Come with me and find out," she replied, then continued on into the trees. 

"We don't even know your name," Switch called after her. 

The girl turned again and held out her hand. Switch glanced at them, then stepped forward, almost close enough to take the child's outstretched hand. 

"My name is Eve." 

*****

They followed her deep into the woods, not knowing how long they walked. She was strong, for a child, or so they assumed because she didn't stop to rest at all. She also seemed disinclined to talk while they traveled, so a tense silence hung about the group. Trinity and Switch exchanged nervous glances, for this was _not_ what they had expected at all. Neo was still wrapped up in his own little bubble, his single outburst not curing him of his new, brooding silence. It was all Trinity could do not to smack him, but if he wanted to sulk like a child she knew it was not her job to stop him. He was too old for that, and she was not his mother. 

Trinity had her doubts that this child-if child indeed she was-was the source of all the pretense around them. Though she couldn't imagine why anyone would try to create this, it was too ordered, too perfect, to be the work of an immature and untrained mind. Even Neo got things wrong sometimes. So, as far as she could figure, either this "child" was no child, or she was not the true cause of this anomaly, no matter what she claimed.

Neo was no help either way, and Mouse and Apoc had apparently decided that it was best to let Trinity and Switch handle this turn of events. Whether that was because they were women-seemingly better prepared to deal with a child-or because Switch and Trinity ranked them, Trinity didn't want to say. She didn't like the answer her mind kept returning to.

Finally, after what seemed like another eternity, the child paused. They stood before a dense wall of bushes and low scrub, just tall enough that they could not see over it. Eve turned, regarded them with another strange look, and spoke for the first time since they'd started walking.

"This is my home," she said, one hand resting upon the bush. With that, she pushed it firmly aside, and the leafy tendrils swayed away from her hands like thistledown. Beyond the dense scrub, where the stunned crewmembers now filed, there was a low cliff, and below that, a small village seemingly carved out of the very forest. "Welcome to the Fourth Kingdom." 

*****

Morpheus lay upon his bunk, his face a mask of unhappiness. He hadn't liked putting his crew-not to mention Neo-into such danger as this. But what else could he do? He had orders from the one person he still allowed to boss him around. 

He'd gone into the Matrix to see her before he sent them in. She looked just as she always had, though the living room of her small apartment was devoid of children. Morpheus frowned, then smiled again as the realization took him-Neo had been found. There was no more need to bring potentials in to be judged by the Oracle. 

"Hello, Morpheus," the Oracle said, smiling as she brought him a steaming cup. "Tea, just the way you like it."

"You never made me tea before."

"Does that mean I don't know what you prefer?" she shot back, an amused smile on her face. "Oh, Morpheus. So much have you learned in the long years since your unplugging. But I wonder-"

Morpheus did not question her as she broke off her thought mid-sentence and took a swallow of her own drink. The Oracle said exactly what she meant to, and no amount of questioning could change what she would and would not say.

"There's something odd in the Matrix," she said.

"Yes. We've been requested by our contact in Zion to investigate it, bring back whoever's causing it if we are able."

The Oracle stretched her tired fingers, and Morpheus could see the arthritic joints struggle painfully. "You'll be able to," she said. "A child could do it-just make sure she doesn't!"

"Who?" Morpheus queried, unable to help himself this time. 

She chuckled. "Got you that time, didn't I? You don't know her yet, Morpheus. Maybe you never will. But I can tell you this-the healing isn't over yet." 

"Is it ever?"

"Oh, yes," the Oracle replied, smiling. "But I have a favor to ask you, now that you're here."

"Consider it done."

"Hold on, big boy, it's not that easy." She shook her head and took another swallow of tea. "Drink-you know you don't like it cold." 

Morpheus obeyed, an ironic smile on his face. 

"Now. What I'm going to ask you to do has never been done before, but you guessed as much already. I want you to send your crew-yes, Neo and Trinity too-blindly into the heart of the anomaly."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, they'll be in no danger," she assured him. "But there are things they need to know. And there's something-someone-there that I need."

"You want us to unplug him?"

"Her," the Oracle corrected, "and it's entirely her choice whether or not she wants to be unplugged. Either way she must come to me-whether or not she stays within the Matrix." 

"You can't want someone that important to remain in the power plant." 

"Can't I?" The Oracle chuckled. "Morpheus, you are such a noble man. You want so to do the right thing. But have you ever thought that the dream of the Matrix might be better for some than the real world? Some minds can't handle it-can't handle being unplugged and confronted with the truth."

Morpheus bowed his head, accepting the rebuke. "We'll go, then-" he started, but the Oracle shook her head firmly. 

"No, Morpheus. They need to do this on their own this time. You can't help them." She stood, staring at a distant spot on the wall. "And I may need you later." 

"If you promise no harm will come to them…"

"No harm, Morpheus. I would not send your family into danger." 

He nodded, though he didn't like the request. "Then they will go," he agreed. "But only on the strength of your word." 

"When you believe them, my words are strong indeed."

*****

Some houses seemed to be the hollowed-out trunks of trees. Others were true tree houses, built high up in the leafy branches. There were only a few-perhaps six or seven-and only three or four people strolling along the dirt paths between them. 

Just then the child took off, skidding down the cliff at a reckless pace Trinity was sure would get her killed. Without thinking she took off after her, an arm stretched out as if she could calm the wild creature if she could just reach her. Neo followed Trinity, snapping out of his self-induced seclusion when he saw her skidding wildly down the cliff. Switch and Apoc followed him in their bodyguard mode, and Mouse followed, not wanting to be left alone. 

"Be careful!" Trinity gasped when she finally caught up with the girl at the bottom of the cliff. Pale dust rose in a cloud around them, settling on their clothes and making Trinity sneeze, though the girl seemed not to be affected by it. 

Eve looked at Trinity strangely, then shook her head. "I told you," she said. "I can't be hurt here." 

Trinity glanced back up at the cliff above them just as Mouse skidded down to join the group. It was at least fifteen feet high, and though from here it didn't look quite as steep as it had from the top, running down cliffs was hardly a safe activity for a child.

"But you don't really believe I _am_ a child," Eve said, a small smile lighting her face. Trinity noted, for the first time, the girl had lost her front baby teeth and she had one and a half big ones in place. It fit, somehow, with the rest of her appearance that her teeth had not grown in yet.

Then Eve smiled and reached for Trinity's hand. The older woman made no move to stop her, and the child took her hand easily. She then led them, Trinity casting a quizzical glance over her shoulder at Neo and Switch, into the village proper. 

"Hello Eve, darlin'!" a man called, and he changed his path, angling to meet them. He swept up the child, who released Trinity's hand and laughed happily, and tossed her into the air. "How have you been?"

"Fine," the girl said. "Brought home some friends."

The man didn't seem terribly interested in the newcomers, which Trinity found disconcertingly odd, but he greeted them sincerely. "Glad are we to see some new faces," he said, and the phrase had an air of formality around it. Trinity wondered if, here, it was a traditional phrase of greeting. 

"Come on," Eve said, then, taking Trinity by the hand again as the man let her go. "I want to show you _my_ house." 

"Wasn't that your father?" Switch asked as they left the man behind. 

"No!" the girl said. "Why should he be?"

"Where _are_ your parents?" Trinity interjected, trying to pry more information about their young guide.

"Haven't any." She sounded utterly unconcerned.

"Grandparents?"

"Haven't any."

"Aunts? Uncles? Family?" 

"Haven't any."

"Friends?" Switch tried, unable to think of any other caregivers.

At that Eve turned and smiled beatifically. "You are my friends!" she said, her smile both proud and delighted. "You came to see me." 

They traveled up the valley a little ways, passing out of the village and encountering no more. 

"Well, if he wasn't your father, who was he?" Switch pressed, trying to make her voice sound light. 

"No one," the girl replied lightly. "D'you want to see a gryphon?"

"Gryphons don't exist, sweetie," Trinity said as gently as she could. Neo and Apoc exchanged glances; _she_ might have not noticed herself calling the child a pet name, but they had caught it. 

Eve laughed. "They do, too. Here they do."

Not wanting to argue with the child, Trinity kept her mouth shut. They walked a little farther, and then she stopped and pointed. There, in the side of the cliff wall, was a cave. "That's my home," she said, puffing up proudly. "Let me show you!"

Trinity allowed herself to be dragged to the entrance of the cave. It was pitch black inside: she couldn't see a thing. 

"Light," the girl said calmly, and suddenly the very walls themselves seemed to glow with a soft, golden radiance. 

"I don't even have to say it," Eve said proudly. "But it makes me feel more special when I do." 

"Oh." Trinity couldn't think of anything else to say. She looked over at Neo, and the grave expression in her eyes worried him. He stepped up to her and she found his hand with her free one, clasping it tightly. 

They looked about the cave as they stepped inside, eyes growing wide with wonder. There were three different caves, it seemed, linked by child-sized archways that looked quite natural, carved out of the rock. It was like the cement caves Neo vaguely remembered from Tom Sawyer's Island at Disneyland, hazy memories from his long-ago childhood. 

The main one they stepped into was obviously where the child did most of her living-when she was indoors, that is. It was littered with grimy pillows and dusty blankets, all of which had seen better days. There were some books scattered about-old hardcover things that the child likely had never read-and mounds of paper bearing the mark of childish drawings rendered in charcoal. 

The source of the charcoal Trinity found after poking her head through the small doorway into the second cavern. This was smaller than the first-barely large enough for three fully grown people to stand in, though certainly adequate for a child's needs-and contained a low rock shelf littered with a few cracked clay dishes and a cold fireplace. 

"You light your own fires?" Trinity asked. Neo had a suspicious feeling about the answer to that question, which was confirmed when the child laughed. 

"Fire," she said to the room at large, and instantly a large fire was burning cheerily in the hearth-without anything but charcoal to feed it. "Most of the time I put wood in there anyway," she said, as if confiding a big secret. "It's harder to keep going when I don't."

"I can imagine," Trinity murmured, a strange expression on her face that Neo didn't recognize. She looked…lost, almost. 

The third chamber, on the other side of the living cavern, was obviously her bedroom. There was a hollowed-out depression in the rock where she had heaped blankets and pillows in no better shape than those in the other cave. It was obvious that, powerful though she might be, Eve was still a child and knew little about hygiene. 

"It's lovely," Trinity was saying to the little girl, who beamed happily. She knelt down to the child's height, hands on Eve's arms, and looked into her blue-green eyes. "I want to talk to my friends for a minute," she said. "I'll be back, all right?"

"All right," the girl agreed calmly, and she squirreled away into her bedroom, from which they could hear the sounds of rustling paper and heavy objects-presumably more books-being thrown haphazardly around.

The crew of the Nebuchadnezzar stepped outside into the pale, dappled sunlight, all of them staring wordlessly at each other.

"Jee_zus_," Mouse spat out, sitting on a boulder outside the cave's entrance. "I wish I could do that! Wow! Just bam! and shit happens. I mean-"

"Shut up, Mouse," Apoc flatlined, and Mouse swallowed the rest of his words.

"She can change things," Switch was saying. "Change them-like Neo does."

Trinity shook her head. "No. No, I don't think it's exactly the way Neo changes things," she said, frowning. "There's something different here, but I don't know exactly what it is." She paced, biting one knuckle while she thought. "Neo. Is she the source of what's happening here?"

He nodded. "I don't know how, and I don't know why, but she's it. She's what we've been looking for." 

"Okay, then. So, no matter what's going on here, we found what we came looking for," Mouse said. "We offer her a pill, we wake her up. Case closed." 

Trinity shook her head. "It's not that simple this time, Mouse. Morpheus told us to find out _how_ she's been doing this."

"Are you sure she's not unplugged?" Apoc asked.

"Completely," Trinity answered.

"Okay, then, let's try to think about this logically," Switch said. "Morpheus tells us there's an anomaly in the Matrix, and we have to isolate the cause of it, find out if that cause is human, bring it back if it is, and find out how the hell it was managing to change stuff. Step one, accomplished; we found her. Step two-Neo?"

"She's human."

"Accomplished. Step three-can't do that yet. Step four-we ask her how she does what she does."

"I don't think so," Trinity said. She frowned. "Eve is a child. She hasn't the thought processes yet that make us capable of abstract thought. She probably doesn't even know how she does these things, and if she does, I don't think she'll be able to explain it to us." 

"Could we pull her out first and ask her later?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Neo interjected.

"Why not?" Mouse looked a little affronted.

"I don't think the rest of you grasp what she's capable of," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "What she's doing, I've never tried. Never even thought about trying."

"Well?"

Neo watched Trinity out of the corner of his eye as he spoke. He knew she was still upset with him because of his silent act earlier, but he'd needed the time to think. "Those people-that man back at the village?"

"What about them?"

"They're not real. They don't exist. She _made_ them."

*****

"No."

"Eve, _please_. We only want to help you." Trinity looked into the child's eyes, willing her to believe. 

"You don't understand me."

"You're right," Trinity agreed. "We don't understand you, but we want to. Please. Let us help you."

"I can't get hurt here," the child said stubbornly.

"I understand that," Trinity pressed. "Just let us take care of you for a little while, please? Then you can come back here if you want to. A little vacation. Everybody needs a vacation once in a while, right?"

"A vacation?" The child looked skeptical. 

"Yes." Trinity nodded. 

Eve looked around at the adults hovering around her. She scowled, then. "I can't make you go away like the others," she said. "You're not like them." 

"No, we're not," Neo agreed. "We're like you instead." 

"No." She shook her head adamantly. "You're not like me, either."

"How do you know that?" he asked, kneeling down next to Trinity. "How can you tell?"

She scowled again, and one of her small, dirty fists clenched. "I'll go," she said finally, "but only for a little bit. And they can't come with us." She motioned to Switch, Apoc, and Mouse. "They don't like me. And-they're scared. They think I will hurt you." She looked up at them, anger in her eyes. "I don't hurt anybody!"

"But you'll come?" Neo asked as Trinity and Switch shared a glance. A tiny, imperceptible nod from Switch confirmed it. The other three would wait here, near the cave, while Neo and Trinity took the child and tried to reason with her-figure out the mystery. It was the only thing they could do.

"I'll go," the child agreed, and Neo tried to smile. "Good," he said. Children made him nervous, especially girl children. Especially _this_ girl child. She looked at him with those uncanny eyes, and he just _knew_ she saw more than anybody else did. Possibly more than Neo himself saw, with his ability to change the Matrix in all its depth and complexity…

This child could do that, too.

As they walked away from the cave, the child in between them and one of her hands clasped by Trinity, Neo put his phone to his ear and speed-dialed Tank. 

"Tank, we need a cabin for a while," he said. "Nothing too modern, and nothing too big. Enough food for three people, electricity, running water…." 

"Three people?" Tank demanded.

"Nobody's hurt," Neo assured him. "We've just got a little too much on our hands right now. Trinity and I are trying to take care of it." 

"Where are the others?"

"Safe," Neo said. "I'm going to try the…you know." 

"Okay. I'll be waiting for the signal."

The last thing Neo did before turning the corner and following where Trinity and Eve had walked ahead of him was force a phone booth into being. The phone inside was already ringing with a patched call from Tank when the dust cleared. He hailed his three comrades before walking away.

*****

Trinity was very close to the end of her patience. She gritted her teeth and swallowed the anger she felt as she emerged from the bathroom with a towel draped over her arm. "I'm no housewife, Neo," she said, collapsing into one of the overstuffed leather chairs. 

"Don't I know it," he replied, dropping a kiss on her forehead. "I'm sorry, Trin. Don't know why she's decided to latch onto you."

"I don't know either," Trinity said. "Christ, if I knew _that_, I think I'd know the answer to half this God-be-damned puzzle!"

He dropped his hands on her shoulders and rubbed them firmly. "I know. I keep thinking that there's something completely obvious staring us in the face. Damned if I know what it is, though."

"The answer is here," Trinity said. "We can't just give up now." 

The muted sounds of splashing came from inside the bathroom, and Trinity shook her head ruefully. "Duty calls," she groaned as she levered herself up and out of the chair. "You'd better have dinner for us when we get out of here." 

"Eager to eat my cooking?" Neo asked. "I don't know how wise an idea that is."

"It's better than eating _mine_," Trinity shot back, and then she disappeared back into the bathroom. 

Steam coated the mirror and swirled in lazy tendrils around Trinity's face as she closed the door behind her. The bathtub was an old-fashioned one with clawed feet, and the child seemed to be enjoying the bath. Trinity had noticed the lack of any sort of lavatory in the child's cave, and wondered if this creature had ever actually bathed in something other than the river before.

Some of the dirt encrusted on her knees and under her fingernails seemed determined to stay there, but after so long soaking in hot water it seemed to have given up. Trinity knelt on the plush bathmat and poured a generous amount of no-tears shampoo into her hand, rubbing it in her palm to start the foaming before she carefully applied it to the child's head. 

"Fire!" Eve squealed delightedly, and she flicked a stream of water from one of her toy boats to another. The second boat dunked underwater briefly, only to return to the surface. She kicked, splashing water around in the tub and creating waves for the little boats to bob violently. Trinity scrubbed at the child's scalp, careful to use her fingers and not her nails on the young skin. She found half-healed bruises and scrapes, evidence of the girl's heavily active lifestyle, but absolutely nothing worse than that. There was no sign of previous injury-knotted bones, bad joints-nothing. For the first time, Trinity began to give some belief to the child's oft-repeated phrase, "I can't be hurt here."

"Lie back; careful now," Trinity said softly, cupping her own hand around Eve's eyes so the soap wouldn't wash into them as she gently rinsed it away. The child was tractable and sweet, and now that Trinity was in charge and the girl was out of her element-partially, at least-she no longer felt so uncomfortable around her.

In fact, Trinity realized, she was starting to _like_ her.

The tub was almost too big for the child to climb out of on her own, but she managed, and Trinity was waiting with a large, fluffy towel that completely enveloped Eve's small body. She climbed into the towel Trinity held for her, and it was reflex that wrapped Trinity's arms and the towel around the child's body. They ended up with Trinity still kneeling on the bathmat, the child swathed in a towel and seated on her lap. Trinity reached down and brushed wet, clinging tendrils of the child's hair out of her eyes. Eve only smiled. 

"What do you think?" Trinity asked as she raised Eve to her feet again and rubbed at her wet hair with a corner of the towel. "Neo's cooking for us tonight." 

"Who doesn't know?" Trinity asked, forcing the rising panic in her stomach back where it belonged. This was only a _child_, she told herself.

"The others," Eve said, reaching for the flannel pajamas Tank had sent for her. They were white, and had red balloons on them. 

"Did your parents cook for you?" Trinity asked, buttoning the pajama shirt for her. 

"You don't wanna talk 'bout your secret," Eve said.

"Did they cook for you?" Trinity pressed.

"Don't have any parents."

"All children have parents," Trinity said, holding out a sock. Eve held onto Trinity's shoulder with one hand, and with the other she slid her foot into the sock. Trinity pulled it up over her ankle, tugging it into place. 

"I don't. Never wanted any." 

"But doesn't it get lonely?" Trinity asked, pressing the issue even though she knew the child didn't want to talk about it. "Isn't it lonely when your only friends are the ones you invent yourself?"

"Didn't make _you_," Eve pointed out.

"That's true," Trinity allowed. "How can you tell? What makes me different from the others?"

"You can do things I don't want you to," Eve replied, seating herself before Trinity and handing back the wide-toothed comb Trinity asked for. "I don't tell you what to do."

"Doesn't that make me the same as you?"

"No."

The finality of that answer was something Trinity could hear clearly. She didn't press the topic any more.

*****

Neo walked around the living area of the cabin, his thoughts bordering vaguely on disgust. Whatever he had had in mind when asking Tank for a cabin, this _wasn't_ it. His hazy memory brought up pictures of beachfront bungalows his parents had rented, or the weathered structure of mosquito netting and warped pine boards that his grandparents had lived in during their summers, out at their riverfront property in Mississippi. 

This was nothing like either memory. Neo guessed Tank must have taken him literally when he asked for a _cabin._

It was a manufactured log cabin, or that was as close as he could get to explaining the damn place. The inside was posh, but livable, with shiny wood floors, textured walls, and large plush furniture. Everything had the look of rustic trappings without sacrificing any functionality. Idly, he wondered if the child had some hand in the look of the building as she had with the boats. But, no. This was more Tank's own odd sense of humor. The place looked like something a couple would rent up in the mountains for their honeymoon.

"Shit, shit, _shit,_" he muttered as he stared blankly into the pantry. It was well stocked-with things like flour, sugar, oil, spices…. How the hell was he supposed to figure out what to do with them? "I don't fucking cook!"

Finally, in the freezer, he found something he thought he could figure out. Hot dogs. Smiling to himself, Neo pulled out the frozen mystery meat and threw a pan of water on the stove to heat. He mentally reminded himself to do something equally dire to Tank once they got out of this mess.

Using scissors he found in a drawer, Neo cut the plastic wrapping away from the hot dogs and dumped the whole frozen mess into the water. Rummaging in the cupboards, he managed to find hot dog buns, mustard, and relish, but the only catsup he could find was the kid-oriented kind in the purple squeeze bottle. 

"If there is no spoon," he told himself, "there is no purple catsup either." But he still couldn't bring himself to taste it. 

Things were too weird, and Neo knew there was an answer simmering just beneath where his mind could get at it. It was a simple answer, too; he knew _that_ as well. Simple, too simple for his adult mind to grasp. 

"Okay. Think like a kid," he muttered, sliding into a chair at the dining table and smacking his forehead against his cupped hands for a moment. "Think like a kid." 

His mind stayed blank. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to figure out the puzzle by trying to think like Eve did. 

The sound of the child's clear laughter, muffled by the walls, floated to him. Children. This was one thing he didn't understand. Nothing in his previous life or while on the Nebuchadnezzar had prepared him for acting as a caregiver to a little girl who, while seemingly powerful, still threw temper tantrums and got excited about the smallest things. A sign of civilized life-the cabin-was utterly foreign to her, and it had taken the better part of an hour for her to tear through every square inch of the place when they first brought her here. She had inspected every minute detail, from light switches to the "phenomenon" of hot water running from the tap. She'd jumped on her steel-spring mattress, tried to walk on the waterbed in Neo and Trinity's bedroom, flushed a full container of bubble bath down the toilet (they'd had to call Tank to clean up the mess), and ran into the big picture windows because she hadn't realized there was glass there. Thankfully the glass had not broken and she herself was not hurt. But now, not long after the child had entrusted herself to his and Trinity's care, Neo felt worn out. Completely out of his league. 

The sound of hissing alerted Neo to the stove, where the boiling water holding the hot dogs was now spilling over the sides of the pan. "Damn it!" he said, knocking over his chair in his rush to turn off the heat and remove the pan from the stove. "Never again. No cooking. No domestic life. _Never._"

Fighting renegade AI was so much easier.

Eve was delighted by the purple catsup and used so much of it that she was soon covered with the sticky purple mess. Trinity had merely raised her eyebrow when she saw what Neo had made, hiding an amused smile. She ate dinner without comment, but Neo saw the calculating look in her eyes and knew that _something_ would have to be done about their dining situation. Either she would have Tank send them down pre-packaged dinners that they could throw in the microwave, or Trinity herself would take over the cooking. Which, Neo reflected, would mean she would give him more child-duty. He wondered which was worse.

But now Eve was nearly falling asleep over the last of her dinner, and Trinity rose, clearing dishes from the table. That was a clear sign, Neo saw, that _her_ time with the child was done and it was Neo's turn now.

Wishing to be anywhere else, nearly, Neo wet a dishrag at the kitchen sink and then returned to the sleepy girl, trying to be gentle as he wiped the sticky purple mess from her hands and cheeks. "Food goes in your mouth," he said. "Not _on_ it."

She shrugged and let him finish before climbing down from her chair and padding over to the big picture windows. She looked smaller, somehow, in the pajamas and with the ends of her hair trimmed straight. Neo watched as she climbed onto the couch and knelt, pressing her body against the back of it and staring out the windows. 

"Uh…nice night, huh?" he said, sitting on the opposite end of the couch. She turned her head and stared at him dispassionately before returning her attention to the dark world outside. 

"I see Trinity cut your hair."

She ignored him. 

Neo cast his mind into the deepest shadows of his Matrix-born memory, trying to find something that would capture her attention. His mind alighted on something and he clung to it, stubbornly deciding that if Trinity could make this child like her, well, than he could, too.

"Would you like a story before you go to bed?" he asked, remembering the shelf full of children's books that he'd glimpsed in Eve's new bedroom.

She turned, at that, and looked at him again. Then, as if she'd made a decision, she nodded. "Okay. But it has to have unicorns in it."

He hoped at least one of the books fit that bill, and hesitantly held out his hand. Eve took it calmly, and together they rose from the sofa and walked into the hallway that separated the living rooms from the bedrooms.

Trinity hid a smile, watching them from behind a wall as she stacked the dishes and turned on the sink tap. Neo still had a lot to learn when it came to handling kids. It seemed that now, with Eve, he would learn it.

*****

"…and they all lived happily ever after." 

Neo looked down at Eve, curled among the stuffed animals and fat blankets like a doll. When she slept, all the cunning fled her face and she looked like nothing so much as a waxen image of a child, the ones crafted to make children look like angels fallen from heaven. One of her small hands was curled into a loose fist, holding the edge of a blanket. The other was tucked underneath her somewhere.

She'd fallen asleep not halfway into the fairy tale, the only book Neo could find on the shelf that dealt with unicorns. As she slept, Neo held the book in his palm and willed it to move back to the shelf where it belonged. Relief filled him that he could still manipulate the Matrix in this place.

For, no matter what she called it, this was still part of the Matrix. He knew it with an innate surety that few things could give him. He was sure of it in the way he was sure he was the One, the way he was sure he loved Trinity and she loved him, the way he was sure that _together_ they would bring this war, eventually, to a close. 

The sound of running water from the kitchen stilled, and soft footsteps approached the room. Neo turned his head and saw Trinity glide in, her movements slow and quiet so as not to wake the sleeping child. He couldn't know how she had slipped into his cabin aboard the Neb with this kind of effortless silence countless times, never waking him. He couldn't know it was she that had brought him dinner when he'd fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion right after training sessions with Morpheus, or how she came and went from their bed without ever waking him. He'd never questioned it, but now, seeing her practiced quiet movements he wondered just where she had learned to walk with such stealth. It hadn't been part of training-at least, not _his_ training. They learned how to run, and it didn't matter how quiet they were. Staying alive was about being faster than the Agents, not about sneaking around them.

"Sleeping?" Trinity asked, her voice no more than a murmur. Neo nodded. She echoed the gesture and crept around to the other side of the small bed, her hands straightening the blankets and tucking the little girl in more securely. Neo watched as she smoothed the child's unbraided hair and then, to his surprise, leaned down very slowly and kissed her forehead. He started to say something but caught himself, not wishing to disturb the sleeper. 

Neo followed Trinity out of the room, snapping off the light. Immediately, he saw a small glow in the corner of the room flicker to life-a night light. Shaking his head, he closed the door as softly as he could.

Trinity looked about as tired as he felt, and they returned to the warm living room without a word. They piled logs in the fireplace and Trinity lit them with a burning roll of newspaper. 

"You're beginning to like her, aren't you?" Neo said. 

Trinity shrugged. "She's a likeable child. It's hard not to." She didn't even bother to hide her smile this time. "You do, too. Admit it." 

Neo shuddered. "I don't like children. They make me nervous."

"They may make you nervous, but you like her just the same." Trinity chuckled. "I saw you tuck her in, Neo."

"Move like a Goddamn ghost, you do," he growled. "Never know where you'll pop up next."

She shrugged. "It's a gift."

They sat in silence for a while, until Neo moved to pull Trinity closer to him on the long sofa. She let him draw her close, leaning back against his shoulder as she stared into the flames. "I still think there's something we're missing here," she said.

"Me, too. And I don't think we're going to be able to find it by sitting here and playing house."

Trinity tensed. "I know this doesn't look like work to you," she said, "but we _are_ getting somewhere."

"But where?" he pressed. "I don't know any more now than I did before." 

"Maybe you don't," Trinity said, "but I do."

"Like what?"

"I know that she understands we're not like the other people here, the ones she's made herself. I know that she's uncomfortable talking about it. She wants things to stay as they are. She fears change, and we represent change. But she likes us. For some reason, she trusts us."

"Maybe she's just lonely."

"It's possible." 

Neo sighed. "I mean…I don't know. Don't you ever feel…" He trailed off and shook his head. He didn't have words for what he was trying to say. "In the Matrix."

"Yeah?"

"Walking in the city, with all those people who don't know the truth, who go on with their meaningless lives without stopping to question the nature of their reality-don't you ever feel…alone? Like you're the only real person in the entire world?"

"I see what you're getting at," Trinity said slowly. "It's the same for her, really, even if she doesn't know the truth." 

"Maybe if we unplug her, she wouldn't feel as bad," Neo said. "She'd be with other people-_real_ people."

"But-"

Neo suddenly sat up, breaking off whatever she was about to say. "What the fuck-" He craned his neck, staring out the big picture windows. "Trinity, look."

"I see it, Neo. Jesus _Christ_, I didn't know she could do that!"

"She's asleep," Neo argued. They were both kneeling on the couch by this time, staring over its back at the night outside. "How could she be doing it?"

"She's _dreaming,_" Trinity said. "What was her bedtime story about?"

"Unicorns, but…" Neo stopped mid-sentence. "Holy shit."

From the woods all around them stepped white, hoofed creatures, their hair finer than featherdown and their footsteps light as silver. They ringed the small cabin, staying just out of the glow emanating from its windows, wreathed in forest mist. Other than their spiraled horns and ethereal light, they looked remarkably like regular white horses. 

"Hang on a sec," Neo said, dropping his voice though he couldn't quite explain why. "I want to check something." And he closed his eyes, willing the Matrix to appear to him. It took no more than an eyeblink this time-he was getting faster. And there, beyond the windows, were the unicorns. He stared at them for a long time, trying to memorize as much of the code as he could, but his mind was far from photographic when it came to memory. There was something not _right_ about them, something…

And it hit him. "There!" he said excitedly, and he banished the sight of the Matrix. Trinity was watching him, waiting for an explanation. With a wildness that was born, Neo knew, of his excitement at _finally_ having at least one answer, he grabbed her and kissed her. 

Trinity let him hold her for perhaps a fraction of a second before pushing him away. "Answer. Now," she said, but her eyes twinkled and belied her sharp tone.

"It's not real!" he said, and without knowing quite why, he burst out in relieved laughter. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she asked, completely nonplussed. Neo collapsed on the couch and drew her with him, Trinity waiting still for her explanation. 

"It's not real!" Neo said again.

"Of _course_ it's not real," Trinity said, a hint of impatience in her voice. "It's the Matrix, idiot."

"No, no, that's not what I mean," he said, finally calming down. Trinity propped herself up on an elbow and raised an eyebrow.

"Ready to act like an adult again?" she asked.

"Sorry," he said. "But it's just…relief, I guess."

"About what, for Chrissakes?"

"I…"

"_Neo_." Trinity shook her head. "How many times do we have to tell you? You are _the fucking One_, and no child, no matter what she may be capable of, is going to take that away from you." 

"I know," he said. "But sometimes I need reminding."

Trinity rubbed her temple with two fingers as if she had a headache. "Neo, the last thing we need right now is soul-searching on your part." 

"No, Trin, I'm serious. I think I might know what she's doing." He sat them both up, his hands on her shoulders as he looked into her eyes, willing her to understand. "Those 'unicorns' out there? They're not really unicorns."

"What?"

"They're horses, Trinity-horses. Horses that glow and have horns stuck on their heads. It's the coding equivalent of taking glue and sticking a fake horn on the head of a horse to make it look real." 

"But-"

"She's not _making_ these animals that don't exist," he said. "She's just changing ones that do so they look like fantasy creatures."

Trinity nodded. "So the gryphons, the unicorns, the big bird…they're just manipulations."

"Right. Anyone with enough computer knowledge could do it, and it's a lot easier than putting new things in the Matrix. Tank could load a horse into the construct, doctor it up, and send it to us probably in under a minute." 

"Shit." Trinity shook her head. "Okay, that's one answer. But we still don't know _why_ she's doing it, or how. We just know _what_ she's doing."

"Wanna make a list like Morpheus does?"

"Sure." Trinity ticked the points off on her fingers. "Who-Eve. What-is making things appear to be magical. Where-somewhere in the Matrix. Why-don't know. How-don't know." 

"She's lonely."

"What?"

Neo shrugged. "It's as likely an answer as any. She could be doing this because she's lonely, and making these things helps her feel better."

Trinity looked at him. "Why does everything with you turn to loneliness?" she asked, her voice turning slightly playful. 

"I used to be," he said, lying down as she crawled over him, pressing her body against his. Neo's arms snaked around her, eventually hooking around the jutting angle of her hipbones. 

"Used to be?"

"Yeah?"

"When did that change?" she asked, her lips coming to rest a breath away from his. Neo wanted to do nothing more than reach up and kiss her, but she was firmly holding him down. "When Morpheus unplugged you?"

"No." He fought against her weight, but she merely chuckled and didn't let him up. In strength, Neo had to grudgingly admit, they were pretty equally matched. His extra weight and size didn't stand for much-she knew how to use her muscle and weight to make the most of what she had. 

"When, then?"

"You know damn well when," he said, arching his neck up to try and reach her. She kept just out of reach, a smile playing along the edge of her mouth. "When you kissed me, and I knew I wasn't alone anymore." 

Having heard what she wanted, Trinity dipped her head and her mouth met his, hungry and wanting. The false unicorns still danced outside, but neither person particularly cared about anything other than what was going on within the circle of firelight, on the sofa. 

It was Trinity who ripped her mouth away from his, finally, catching his wrist with one hand to grasp Neo's attention. 

"Neo…"

"Mm." He made the noise that meant he wasn't really listening and pressed his lips to her collarbone. 

"Neo, stop it." She sat up, straddling his waist, and her eyes flicked toward the hallway and the closed door behind which Eve slept. "There's a child in there that could wake up at any second." 

"So we'll go into the bedroom and lock the door." He reached for her again, but Trinity slapped his hands away. 

"Not that easy, flyboy," she said, climbing reluctantly to her feet. "Maybe you'd better take a cold shower before coming to bed."

"Why?"

"Even though Tank and Morpheus can't see us expressed in the Matrix code anymore, they're monitoring our vitals," she reminded him. "They're not stupid, and if they see-"

Neo flushed violently red and cursed. Trinity chuckled at his embarrassment and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. "Wait until we get out of here," she said, her hands smoothing his hair down. 

The unicorns were still there as they left the living room, headed for bed. 


	4. Chapter 4

"So what's the Third Kingdom like?" Neo asked. The sun shone through the big windows, flooding the room with light and making the wooden walls seem to glow. 

"_Fourth_ Kingdom," Eve corrected him from the floor. Her attention was caught by the huge sheet of butcher paper before her, and the squiggled lines and circles she'd drawn. Splotches of blue, red, and yellow paint lay everywhere. Eve was learning to finger-paint. She'd decided that painting with her elbows was more fun than with her hands, which not only made a bigger mess, but made awful sucking noises when her elbows stuck to the paper and she had to pull them apart. 

"I know this is the Fourth Kingdom," Neo said. "But what about the Third?"

"Is no Third Kingdom."

"The Second?"

"Just the Fourth Kingdom." She looked up at him, a wide line of blue paint smeared across her cheek. "Just mine."

"But-"

"Have you ever been anywhere else?" Trinity asked, purposely interrupting Neo's question. Having already entered into four childish arguments with Eve that morning, it was obvious he didn't understand how to deal with her natural stubborn tendency to assume she was always right. Not wanting this conversation, too, to degenerate into Neo insisting "Did not!" and Eve shouting "Did, too!" for a full half-hour, she decided to stop them before they could get into more trouble. 

The child seemed mystified by this question, and Trinity struggled to explain herself. "Have you ever been outside the Fourth Kingdom?"

"There is nothing outside the Fourth Kingdom."

"There has to be," Neo said. "_We_ weren't always inside it."

"No," Eve agreed, "you weren't."

"Well, where were we before we came here?"

"You were not," the child said, and that seemed to please her well enough as an answer, for she said no more on the subject. 

They tacked the huge sheet of paper on one wall, displaying the artwork, and then set about the task of cleaning all the paint off the floors and off of Eve herself. This second task was considerably harder than the first, for Eve, having lived exactly how she pleased for all her remembered life, took exception to having to bathe so often. It eventually took the combined efforts of both Neo and Trinity, and many tears on the child's part, to scrub her clean. She sulked for a full hour afterward, but the incident was soon forgotten in her fleeting memory and she was cheerful for the rest of the afternoon. 

Neo kept watching this strange creature, having trouble dealing with the lightning-quick changes in temperament and behavior that the child exhibited. He wasn't used to this, wasn't used to acting as caregiver to _anything_, much less a human child. He remembered his failed attempt to keep goldfish alive, and the turtle he'd had as a child. All had died within a month, and he felt sure that this was a sign he was not meant to care for anything. 

Combined with Trinity's wry humor as she watched him attempt to relate to Eve, this had him tied in knots. He was, by turns, furious with Trinity for putting him in this situation and utterly grateful to her when she came to his rescue. It was obvious that she, too, had little idea what she was about. But Trinity had always possessed a stronger shield and better mask than he had, and though she was just about as lost as he, she hid it better and her bluffs often turned out to be correct.

So they muddled through this unexpected task of childcare, neither quite knowing what to do but somehow managing. Eve didn't seem to realize there was anything amiss at all, and she went about her days with childish cheerfulness that Neo knew he could never truly keep up with. He collapsed into bed at the end of each day, too exhausted to do more than wait for Trinity to collapse next to him before surrendering to sleep.

And it continued, the days stretching into weeks. Every day Neo worried that Trinity was slowly becoming more and more attached to their new little charge, and tried to deny that he was becoming attached as well. Life settled into a rhythm, something that would have been utterly pleasant were it not for the nagging feeling that they still hadn't figured out what they had come here to find. 

That, and the fact that he could not bring himself to make love to Trinity while in the Matrix. His desire for her sharpened each day they remained celibate in each other's presence, turning into something that twisted in his gut if she so much as brushed against him accidentally. They'd taken to touching each other as little as possible, neither wanting the humiliation of knowing Tank or Morpheus-or possibly both-could look at their vital signs back in the real world…and know.

"How did you make the Fourth Kingdom?" Neo asked one afternoon as Eve crouched near him on the grass outside the cabin. Trinity was stretched out on her stomach beside them, asleep in the warm sunlight streaming down through the trees. 

Eve shrugged.

"It's not like how you finger-paint, or draw, is it?" Neo pressed, though he thought he knew the answer. 

"No," she agreed, plucking a blade of grass. "Drawing happens here." She flexed her small hands, wiggling her fingers. "The Kingdom happens here." She touched her forehead. 

"What do you see when you do it?"

"I don't see anything," she replied. "It just _happens._" 

"Just happens?"

She nodded. "Like…" Struggling for words, she crawled into Neo's lap and opened the picture book he was holding. She turned the pages until she found the one she was looking for, a picture of a little boy having a birthday party. "Like birthday wishes," she said, pointing at the cake with its lit candles. "I wish, and it comes true."

"But who grants the wishes, then?"

"I do." Eve looked at him, then, the strange look she used less and less often the longer she spent in their company. "You still don't b'lieve me, but you want to." She cocked her head to the side. "It's harder to hear you, but I still know." 

"When you hear me, is that wishing too?"

She nodded solemnly. All at once, in a flash of understanding, Neo realized why he hadn't understood before how she was doing what it was she did. His mind traveled back to his meeting with the Oracle and everything Morpheus had said while trying to convince Neo that he was the One. It had all been a matter of belief, really. That's what they'd tried to explain to him, and what he just didn't understand.

Now, just maybe, he did. 

"You have to go away again," Eve said. Her eyes held his, calm. There was no screaming, no flashes of temper. "I don't want you to."

"Can't you wish and make us stay?"

"No." 

"Why not?"

"Because you're not like the rest of them." 

"Who?"

"The other people who live here."

Neo nodded. He cast a glance over at Trinity, who still slept. Though she was technically still his commanding officer, this was_ his_ mission, and he knew she would not mind him taking initiative. 

"Will you come with us when we leave?" he asked. 

Eve considered the question with the careful deliberation only the very young possessed. She looked up at him. "Can I come back if I want to?"

"No," Neo said. He leaned back against the trunk of a tree, and Eve shifted in his lap, turning to face him and sit up fully. She sat on his stomach and regarded him as he spoke. "You can't ever come back," he said, "but there will be other people there for you to be with. Other _real _people. People like you and me." 

"You are not like me." It was one of her reiterated phrases, but this time her words seemed less certain. 

"You can learn secrets," Neo said, trying to sound cajoling. He didn't know how fair that was, but this child had no idea what a matrix was, and she wasn't searching for the truth of anything. Making her wonder what the Matrix was wouldn't work. She couldn't care less. 

"Will you be with me?" she asked. "Trinity too?"

"Yes," Neo said. "You'll go to sleep here and wake up in our home, outside the Fourth Kingdom. We'll be there when you wake up."

She still didn't look particularly convinced that leaving her home was a good idea, and Neo knew it would take a lot of trust on her part, trust that he and Trinity would take care of her. With a realization no less acute than the one he had had before asking Eve to join them, he realized he didn't want to leave the child here. He tried to tell himself that it was for her own good that she accompany them back to the Nebuchadnezzar, that she couldn't hope to grow up here where everything was of her own making and nothing was real at all. It would be worse than leaving her in the real Matrix to whither away. 

The truth, he knew, was that he would miss her. 

"Maybe," Eve said finally. "Maybe I will go with you." And with that she climbed off of Neo's stomach and ran over to the swing that they'd had Tank put in one of the trees. 

"Trinity." Neo shook her shoulder gently. "Trinity, wake up."

"Why?" she mumbled, opening one sleepy blue eye and lifting her head from her arms slightly.

"I figured it out."

She was awake instantly, sitting up and brushing her hair out of her face with an impatient hand. "What is it?"

"It's a riddle," Neo said. "I didn't understand, but now I think I do."

"Well?" 

"Remember how Morpheus kept harping on me about believing in myself?" Neo said. "It was all about _belief_ with him. He thought that if I believed enough, anything was possible."

"What he said was true."

"Yes, but there are two sides to it," Neo said. "We couldn't figure out how Eve was changing the Matrix because we kept looking at the problem from my angle, and how I change it. In reality, she's doing the exact _opposite._"

"Not following." Trinity frowned.

"It's hard to explain," Neo said. "It's like…I don't believe the Matrix really exists, and so I'm able to change it based on my belief that it's not real." 

"I'm with you so far."

"She changes it because she believes it _is_ real. Eve believes this Fourth Kingdom of hers is the only place in the entire universe, and what's inside it is all that exists. Remember when we tried to explain to her that there are places outside of it?"

"She didn't believe us."

"Exactly." Neo looked pleased with himself. "She believes this place is real, and she believes it so blindly that it actually bends to her will." 

"Jesus." Trinity shook her head. "It was staring us in the face all the time, and we never got it." 

"I _knew_ the answer was something simple," Neo said, shaking his head. "It's been hammered into us since we were fucking unplugged. We just weren't asking the right questions to lead to it." 

"So she believes the world is something she creates, something she bends to her will." Trinity bit her knuckle and stared at the grass, creases appearing between her eyebrows as she frowned. "And it _does_, because she believes it." 

"So the question is-what do we do now?"

Trinity's eyes met his. "We go home." 

"With or without her?"

"That's up to her," Trinity replied. "It's not right to force someone to accept unplugging."

"But you want to free her," Neo said. "I know you do."

"I do. But I'm worried."

"Why?"

Trinity shrugged. "She has great faith. What happens to her when she realizes her Kingdom is not real? What happens when we wake her up and she can't change things anymore? What then?"

"Then she learns to survive just like everyone else," Neo said. "Morpheus said children accept these things easier than adults do, remember? She'll learn."

"I hope you're right."

*****

Tank stretched and blinked, willing his eyes to stay open. His shift hadn't been _that_ long, but it was about to get longer. He heard Morpheus stirring, the clanking of the ladder as the older man climbed onto the main deck and stepped toward the Core. The fatherly hand rested on his shoulder for a long moment, and then was lifted away.

"A message from the Oracle, sir," Tank said. "She wants to see you. As soon as possible."

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"She said not to."

Morpheus nodded. "Do you mind the extra shift?"

"No, sir. Load you up now, if you like."

Morpheus sat in his chair, waiting for the data spike and wondering just what it was that the Oracle wanted him for. 

*****

"Hello, Morpheus." 

"Do you talk to all the ship captains as much as you talk to me?" Morpheus asked, an amused smile playing on his lips. Today the Oracle was crocheting, and there were no cigarettes anywhere near her.

"Och. You know very well that your crew is special."

He accepted that remark with an incline of his head and sat on one of the sagging chairs in the Oracle's living room. Today it smelled of Murphy's Oil Soap rather than baking, a change he didn't mind. The smell of fresh baking always reminded him of things they no longer had in the real world.

"I wanted to talk to you about the mission I sent your kids on."

"They say they've found who you're looking for, and they have a pretty good theory on how she's been manipulating the Matrix." He leaned back against the coarse polyester chair with a sigh. "It's improbable, but not impossible."

"Morpheus," the Oracle chided, "I thought you of all people would understand the power of belief." 

"Oh, I understand belief just fine. I just don't understand the physical manifestations of that belief."

"Well." The Oracle wound the ball of dark blue yarn and picked up a ball of pale yellow, tying it into the pattern she was slowly crocheting. "Let's turn this into a lessoning then, shall we? What do you think the entire basis of the New Age and neo-Pagan movements are, I ask you, if not your so-called coppertops attempting to subvert the system and gain some control over their lives?" 

"That's a scant few, and they haven't the power or the control this child has." 

"But it's the same concept." She smiled. "What is the force they call magic? What is energy, in this place? All the talk of energy that they ask to do their bidding-what are they doing but bending the Matrix to their will?" 

Morpheus shook his head wryly. "Why does talking to you always make me feel like I should be back in elementary school?" he asked. 

"You have your strengths, Morpheus, and I have mine." She smiled, then; it was a gesture touched with sadness. "There are things you accomplished that I could not. Even life." 

Morpheus knew his mind was hopelessly inferior to the one he now communicated with, but it was wise enough in that moment to remain silent. What pain hid behind the Oracle's helpful words he could not measure though he knew its source.

She cleared her throat, then, and forced a smile. "Now. About this child your protégés are even now trying to free." Her eyes leveled. "I don't know yet if she will come with them. But if she does…" The Oracle trailed off, and seemed to choose a different way to approach her topic. "Morpheus, it's time for Neo and Trinity to learn _my_ truth."

"Are you sure?" Morpheus asked. "Few know. Even fewer know the whole story."

"You think you can protect me from a truth that happened lifetimes before you were born?" the Oracle asked, her voice brimming with amusement. "Morpheus, you may be a father to your ship and her crew, but you cannot father the entire human race. I am older than you-by far. I can handle myself. It is time for Trinity and Neo to know." She moved the yellow yarn out of the way and returned to the blue. "This is a blanket for the new child, if she is willing to go with your crew. Remember your promise. Bring her to me as soon as you can-whether inside the Matrix or out." 

Morpheus nodded, unwilling to argue with the Oracle when she made a direct request. "Of course," he said, and that was the end of that.

*****

Morpheus sat in his loading chair watching the Matrix spill across its screens. Tank was probably sleeping, or should be if he wasn't. The Neb was as quiet as she ever got, with just the two of them conscious and nobody rushing about or having conversations while they worked. 

He missed his crew, he had to admit. Though Neo had sent an exit to Switch, Apoc, and Mouse, they hadn't wanted to leave him and Trinity alone in this strange corner of the Matrix. Tank had been unable to run tests over the exit-it was as lost in the Matrix code as the crew and the child causing the disturbances. But nobody questioned its ability to work. They trusted Neo's creation, just wanted to make sure he and Trinity were as safe as they could be. Morpheus allowed them to stay, knowing he and Tank could handle the Neb unless something urgent came up and knowing it made them feel better to be close to their comrades in case of an emergency inside the Matrix. 

Morpheus was unsurprised that they had not found any trace of Agents in this so-called Fourth Kingdom. If, indeed, the child had created it and was controlling it, likely these sentient programs did not exist within it. He weighed the likelihood of the Agents even knowing about the Fourth Kingdom's existence and found it unlikely. They surely would have hunted down and killed a human child with such abilities long before now, were they able to reach her. But with no actual humans hard-wired to their system within the Fourth Kingdom-save the child herself-they would have no way to get there. Agents were disinclined to walk; they would not have hiked inside. It was entirely possible that they couldn't even see it, since the entire Fourth Kingdom was no more than a very small anomaly within the scope of the Matrix itself. 

Idly, Morpheus wondered what it would be like to have a child on board once more. They hadn't had any real children on the Neb-Apoc had been unplugged the youngest, and he'd been almost sixteen. Trinity was the youngest he'd ever unplugged before, and she was strangely grown-up for her age, anyway. This child was young, and still very much…well, a child. He knew they were headed toward some very exhausting and very amusing days as they tried to acclimate this new "recruit" to life in the real world. 

If she agreed to join them. 

There was never really a question about contacts joining them. They purposely picked people who wanted the truth so badly that they didn't mind leaving their old lives, people who hadn't much of a life to leave anyway-people who would benefit from being unplugged. But with a child who didn't really understand what they were asking of her and likely wouldn't care even if she did… He didn't know what she would choose, and this was a new experience for him.

Again, his mind wandered to the Oracle and just what she might be plotting. It was hard to imagine such an utterly unprepossessing grandmother-type person actually plotting, but there was much that went on inside the Oracle's head that no one else could guess. Why she now wanted Neo and Trinity in on her secret-that was as baffling as anything Morpheus had ever heard from her before. He wondered what she wanted with this new child-she had not even asked for Neo to be brought to her right away. She'd given him time to adjust to the reality, the truth, and to start his training. 

But she wanted this new child, should she agree to join them, as soon as humanly possible. _Sooner_ than humanly possible. Morpheus couldn't fathom it, and though he knew he really should just allow the Oracle her eccentric ways and believe she had a good reason for what she chose to do, he found it extremely difficult to dismiss his thoughts out of hand. 

He didn't understand, and that was something Morpheus had a very difficult time dealing with. He liked to be the one in charge, the one holding the keys that would unlock new minds and start them on the path toward rebellion against their machine masters. 

But the Oracle knew what she was doing. Morpheus knew that.

He had to have faith.

*****

Eve had fallen asleep in Trinity's arms. 

Neo almost smiled when he saw his superior officer, his life partner, sitting in a chair in Eve's room and holding the sleeping child on her lap. She was staring at the blank wall opposite her, holding the child, but something in her face stopped him from smiling. It was love, but it almost hurt Neo to see and he couldn't quite explain why. 

Eve had changed in the weeks she'd spent with them. Her hair was considerably shorter-after realizing with her first hair trim that it didn't hurt to have her hair cut, she had insisted it be cut as short as Trinity's. Trinity had refused, point-blank, to cut her hair quite that short, but the curly brown locks now just barely brushed Eve's shoulders instead of hanging in a heavy mass down her back. 

She was cleaner now, too, though she still managed to get filthier than Neo could imagine by day's end. She found every single mud pit in the entire forest, he believed, and seemed to enjoy rolling in both mud and dust, staining her clothes with grass, moss, and the red bark of the trees, and getting the pungent tree-sap in her hair and on her skin. It didn't come off very easily, either; Neo likened sap to bubble gum that way. She still ate messily, though she was getting better, and art projects continued to strew glue, paint, scraps of paper, and bits of clay everywhere-including _on_ her person.

He didn't care. Neo, the One, who had lived the life of a solitary hacker and programmer before being unplugged and then turned into a terrorist fighter, now knew that he loved this strange child who was so much more than she appeared and yet less than what they'd originally assumed. Yes, she manipulated the Matrix to her will, but it was an accident. Her destiny wasn't wound in it like his was. And he didn't much care. He loved her anyway.

"Trinity," Neo said, stealing softly across the room. She looked at him, and he saw the indecision in her eyes as she held the little girl. "She's asleep, Trin. Why don't you put her to bed?"

Trinity shook her head slightly and shifted her grip on the sleeping Eve. "I don't know what to do, Neo," she said softly. 

"About what?" Neo drew up the only other chair in the room, a child-sized thing that was dwarfed by his adult body. He looked up at Trinity, vaguely wondering if he should abandon the chair and opt for the floor-there wasn't much difference, anyway.

"Is it fair to unplug her?" Trinity asked. "Maybe she's better off here." 

"You don't want to leave her here," Neo pointed out.

"But I can't tell if that's selfish feeling or not," Trinity said. "Do I want her unplugged because I'll miss her, or because it's best for her?"

"Is the reason that important to you?"

"Yes."

Neo sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Isn't the truth better than living a lie?" 

"But what if she hates us for it?" Trinity shot back. "What if she…"

"What?"

"She could become another Cypher. She could snap if we force her and she's not ready."

"She's strong, Trinity."

"So Morpheus thought of all of us."

Neo reached up and stroked the curly brown hair. Eve shifted in her sleep but did not wake. "You're the commanding officer," he said. "What you say goes." 

"You're the One."

"This isn't something that can be fixed by decoding the Matrix or killing Agents," Neo replied. "This is your mission. You have to make the call."

"This is _our_ mission," she reminded him. "We'll ask her. Whatever she says…we leave tomorrow." 

Neo knew the reason for picking up and leaving so soon. She didn't have to say it. She wanted to leave before their charge captured her heart completely. He nodded and rose, placing a gentle hand on Trinity's shoulder and dropping a kiss on her head before leaving the room. "It's late," he said. 

"I'll be in soon."

*****

"_No_."

"Eve, sweetie, we don't have time to argue," Neo said gently. "We have to go now. You can come with us if you want, but either way, we have to go. It's time."

Trinity had already walked on ahead, promising through the shell she'd built around her emotions that they would let Eve come with them if she wanted to. Eve hadn't answered the question, merely acted as if Neo and Trinity were abandoning her for good. 

"You can't go!" she said now, panting a little, the quick, tiny breaths that Neo knew were the beginnings of a tantrum. 

"We have to, baby," he said gently. "Come with us if you like. We love you. We want you. But we can't stay here anymore. It's time to go home."

"No!"

She ripped herself away when he tried to hug her, and flung herself away from the cabin and into the forest. Neo didn't know if she was angry or crying, and he jogged after her for a few steps before forcing himself to stop and follow Trinity. It seemed that she had made her choice, and they'd agreed not to second-guess her, no matter what the choice was. 

Trinity was walking when he caught up with her, heading back toward where they'd left the exit and their friends. He captured her hand and squeezed it gently. Trinity didn't have to turn to know that Eve was not with him, and why. He saw a single tear make its way out of her left eye and start to trickle down her cheek before she raised a hand and angrily brushed it away. 

"I'm sorry," Neo said, but she shook her head, jaw clenched so tightly that Neo could see the muscles in her neck and just below her ear quivering. He didn't try to talk to her again. 

They walked the rest of the way back to the others in silence. They'd had phone contact, but only sporadically. It was the longest either had been separated from their crewmates since being unplugged, and both missed them more than they would admit. But the thought of seeing their friends again did little to ease the parting ache in their hearts as they said goodbye to the child they had cared for. 

Trinity decided that she'd known all along that Eve would not agree to leave this place. She asked herself what sane person would leave a wonderland of her own creation to live on a rickety ship that smelled, tasted, sounded, and felt like unyielding metal where they struggled to survive in a war they were losing. She told herself life aboard the Nebuchadnezzar was no place for a child. 

It didn't much help. 

Neo felt an odd sense of failure as he walked the now-familiar forest. This was his first recruiting mission, and though he knew nothing had gone as planned and it really _wasn't_ his fault, he also felt that, somehow, he had failed. They went on a recruiting mission and came back without a new recruit. Something about that smacked of failure to him. And he felt guilty, as well, for putting all his hopes on the shoulders of one very small child who didn't know what she meant to all of them. She was too young, too small, and too entrenched in this world of her own creation to truly understand what they had asked. She was too small, he kept telling himself. It wasn't anybody's fault. 

That didn't much help, either.

"I see them! Hey, hey, I see them!"

"Shut up, Mouse."

"_You_ shut up; he's every right to be excited."

A tight laugh tore itself from Trinity's throat as she heard the familiar sounds of squabbling. She had to admit that she had missed them. She could never have settled into a place like their cabin; not for good, anyway. And the weeks had turned into a vacation that was far too long. She was ready for work again, and it appeared that work was ready for her, too.

"Where is she?" Mouse asked as he saw Neo and Trinity approaching without the child. 

Trinity's face warned Apoc and Switch not to say anything. 

"She chose not to come," Neo said, his tone tight and clipped. Uncertain silence rose around them, Trinity staring at the ground, Neo watching Trinity, and the other three casting confused glances at everyone. 

"Chose not to come? What do you mean?" Mouse said. "Nobody chooses not to come. I mean-"

"Shut up, Mouse," Apoc said again, and this time Switch didn't correct him. 

"She's not coming," Neo said, in his tone a note of finality. "Now stop it." 

"But-"

"Knock it off, Mouse," Switch said this time. She flipped out her phone and speed-dialed Tank. 

"Wondered when you'd ask for a line out," their operator said. "I'm patching the call through now." 

A piece of moss fell from the tree above them and hit Trinity's shoulder as the breeze heightened. She brushed it away with an impatient hand. Another one fell, and then a piece of bark. 

"What the…" She looked up and there, perched two feet above her head, was Eve. 

"Wait," the child said, her eyes red from crying. Her voice trembled as she leaned down and dangled from the branch, hanging by her hands. Trinity reached up and grabbed her, plucking her out of the tree. "I'll come. I'll go with you." 

"You sure?" Trinity asked, her wet blue eyes looking into Eve's wet eyes. "You can't come back again."

Eve looked around her forest, her Fourth Kingdom, and then nodded. "I know. I'll go." 

Trinity had no more to say as Eve put her arms around her shoulders and hugged her tightly. 

The rest of the process was a complete blur for Trinity as they downloaded the equipment they needed to unplug Eve. Morpheus joined them, for this was something that only captains were allowed to oversee. Eve did not seem afraid of him in the slightest, though she did reach up and pull his glasses off, turning them over and over in her hands as if she thought they might change into something else if she held them long enough. Morpheus seemed pleased with her and enthralled with the forest she had made. 

She couldn't swallow a pill, so they had Tank mix the same chemicals in a small glass of water that she drank. Then they gave her a piece of candy to keep her quiet while they hooked her to the machinery and dialed the number that would force her mind back into its body in the real world. 

Trinity knew nothing but anxiety as they maneuvered the Nebuchadnezzar around to pick her up after she'd been spit out of the disposal system. She and Neo were at Eve's side as her white, useless body was dropped to the floor of the ship and her nearly senseless eyes stared up at nothing. Trinity picked her up, trying to comfort the fear she saw in Eve's eyes, and it was Neo that delivered the line he had remembered from his own awakening-

"Welcome…to the real world."

*****

They had to keep her heavily drugged, for she lashed out whenever she woke and hurt herself more each time she moved. Morpheus wasn't overly concerned; Switch, in fact, had done the same thing after being unplugged and it had taken her a long time to calm down to a point where they could take her off the tranquilizers. 

Trinity worried, even if Morpheus did not. She and Neo rarely left the child's side, and never both at once. When one went to eat and catch a few hours' sleep, the other was always in the medical bay. Their presence seemed to calm the child, so Morpheus said nothing and allowed them to stay. He had some clue that they felt responsible for what happened to this child they had taken care of, but he didn't realize that the responsibility had deepened to love.

She recovered much more rapidly than Neo had, for her body had not been wasting away nearly as long as his had. Two weeks she lay in reconstruction, and another week hooked up to an IV in her quarters and unconscious. When she was moved, they took an extra mattress out of storage and threw it on the floor of her cabin, Trinity and Neo taking turns sitting with her though she did not wake. 

Trinity was the one with her when she finally opened her eyes. 

"Hello," she said softly, not trying to scare the child. "Do you remember me?"

"Trinity," Eve said without missing a beat. She looked around gravely, touched her fuzzily-bald head, stared at the plug in her arm and the IV bag dripping nutrients into her vein. "Am I in a dungeon?"

Trinity moved to sit on the bed next to the child. "No, baby. This is our home. You're on a ship." 

"Like a boat?"

"Yes," Trinity agreed. "But this one floats in the air, not on the water. Her name is the Nebuchadnezzar." 

"Oh." Eve tugged at the needle inserted in her arm and got the first of many nasty little surprises in store for her on board the Neb. "Ouch!" she exclaimed, shocked. "It hurts!"

"Gently, little one," Trinity said, reaching over and pulling the needle out so slowly that it didn't hurt. "This isn't the Fourth Kingdom anymore. You can get hurt here, so try to be careful."

Rising panic showed in Eve's eyes as she picked at the metal plug in her arm. She twisted her head, and suddenly froze, her eyes widening. Trinity knew what she'd felt-the unaccustomed weight of the metal plug in the back of her neck. With badly trembling hands, the child reached back and felt it, ran her fingers across the metal. Her breathing had quickened and shallowed, a sure sign that there would be an emotional outburst soon. Trinity saw the warning signs and tried to divert the child's attention, but to no avail. 

Eve screeched and rocketed off the bed, digging with both hands at the plug in the base of her skull and then clawing at the one in her arm. "Off!" she shrieked "Off! Now! Get it off!"

"Eve! Calm down," Trinity tried to soothe, but the child wasn't paying attention. She tried to bolt, but the door was closed and there was no place in the tiny cabin for her to go. Trinity caught her easily and tried to seat her on her lap, but Eve wiggled like a wraith and was using her childish fists and teeth to try and get away. 

Trinity finally managed to situate the child so she could cause neither of them any more harm, holding her from behind and pinning her arms. The child panted and continued to scream, but she couldn't move her arms the way Trinity was holding them, and there was nothing she could bite, no matter which way she turned her head. "Let me go!" she continued to shriek, over and over, until the words blended into a single long wail and she began to cry in earnest. 

Trinity gritted her teeth and held on, willing the child to calm down. Never had any tantrum been this bad-but this was true fear and sheer panic that Eve showed now, not simply childish whims. 

It seemed like the gridlock lasted for hours, but Trinity knew it couldn't possibly have been that long. But finally Eve stopped struggling so hard, her sobs turned into hiccupy little breaths, and finally she cried herself to sleep and slumped in Trinity's arms. 

A bead of sweat rolled down Trinity's face as she eased up on her grip. She knew she'd left bruises on the child's skin, and the sight of them filled her with guilt as she lay the sleeping girl down on her bunk. She'd have to tell Morpheus what happened as soon as she was sure Eve would not wake up again anytime soon. But…what then? Even Switch had not acted like this. Nobody had. 

Fear pricked Trinity's emotions as she covered Eve with blankets and moved the IV and bag away from the girl's reach. She would take them with her, just in case. Eve had gouged her own skin with her fingernails in her frantic wish to remove her plugs, and Trinity lay the girl on her stomach so as not to place pressure on the bleeding back of her neck. She looked at the line of blood that trickled down Eve's neck and wet her shirt, and shivered. This was likely the worst pain the child had ever experienced, for the injury she'd inflicted upon herself was worse than the little scrapes and bruises she was forever picking up in the Fourth Kingdom. 

"What have we done?" Trinity whispered to the sleeping child, wetting a corner of a blanket and gently wiping the tearstains away from Eve's face. Guilt welled up inside her, and she told herself it was because she'd known all along that something like this would happen. And it wasn't fair to Eve. None of it was. 

The door opened then, and Neo came in quietly. He'd let his hair grow so that it approximated the length of his RSI's hair. No one would know by the visibility of his scalp how long he'd been unplugged-not like the child lying comatose before them. 

"She woke up?" Neo asked, seeing the IV lying on the floor. 

Trinity nodded quickly, and it was only as she turned her face toward him and he saw the expression in her ice-blue eyes that Neo knew something was very wrong. 

"What happened?"

"She snapped," Trinity said quietly. "I didn't even tell her anything. She just…snapped. Went crazy. Tried to pull her plugs out." 

"Jesus." Neo sat on the edge of the bunk and looked at the drying line of blood. He then turned back to his life partner. "She got you, too, looks like."

Only then did Trinity look down and see the bruises from little fists already beginning to darken her forearms, and the half-circle of little puncture marks where the sharp baby teeth had gouged her arm. 

"Great," she said. "Stay with her, okay? I have to tell Morpheus." 

Neo nodded and settled himself in by the child's side. "I'll be here," he promised as Trinity escaped to find her captain.

*****

Morpheus said little but to keep her drugged for a little while longer. He hoped that, with a little more time for her body and mind to recover, the shock might not be quite so difficult for her. He said nothing to the Oracle, somehow knowing that she already knew what had happened. He had a sinking feeling that she had known, all along, what would happen when they unplugged this child. It was at times like these that he most wanted to turn to her, and at the same time knew she would not give him the answers he needed.

Trinity still wore her self-appointed guilt in her eyes and on her sagging shoulders. The bite had not become infected, to Morpheus' relief, but she didn't take care of it as she should and it healed slowly. The child's injuries, on the other hand, healed rapidly in her body pumped full of nutrients and resting in drugged sleep. 

After a week they took her off the tranquilizers again, and this time Neo and Trinity were both waiting as she woke up. 

"I thought it was a dream," Eve said slowly as she sat up. "I feel funny."

"That's the tranquilizers, honey," Neo said. "We put you to sleep for a while." 

"Oh." She looked around dazedly, then her eyes alighted on Trinity. "I bit you," she said suddenly, and her eyes welled up with tears. "I'm sorry!" she said, her lower lip trembling. 

Trinity leaned forward and caught her up, hugging her fiercely. "Baby, you didn't mean to," she said. "You were just scared. It's okay."

As Trinity sat on the edge of the bed, Eve in her lap, the child tugged up Trinity's long sleeve and exposed the healing puncture wounds and the bruising surrounding them. But she also exposed the metal plug in Trinity's arm, and she fingered it wonderingly. 

"I have one in my head, too," Trinity said, lifting her hair and turning her head so Eve could see it. "So does Neo. We all do." 

"But why?"

"It's another kind of magic," Neo said, inspired by the metaphor. "Do you want to see how it works?"

Mystified, Eve nodded. 

"I don't know if she's ready yet, Neo…" Trinity said, but he waved away her concerns.

"She's okay now. See?" And he caught Eve up in his arms, carrying her out to the Core. Trinity, full of misgivings, followed. 

"Hello, little one," Morpheus said when he saw she was awake. "Welcome to the Nebuchadnezzar. She is my ship." 

"Like on the river," Eve murmured, staring about her with wide eyes that still looked frightened. "But in the air." She then turned suddenly, unsettling Neo's grip and almost making him drop her. Her brow furrowed and she scowled fiercely, then looked up at Neo accusingly. "I want to grow a tree," she said. "Why won't it happen?"

"Wishes don't work like that here," Neo said gently, looking to Morpheus. Eve's breathing was speeding up and getting shallower again. Trinity dropped back, hidden by a vertical line of piping, and merely watched as the child worked herself closer and closer to another panic.

"Send me back!" she yelled. "I want trees! I want my gryphons! I want my Kingdom! Let go! Let me go! Send me back!"

She was struggling in earnest now, and Neo was having a hard time holding her still. 

"She's gonna pop," Mouse said, and nobody noticed that he had stolen Cypher's line. Some things just never changed. 

"Get me a needle," Morpheus ordered. "Now!"

Mouse and Switch both jumped to obey, flinging themselves down the ladder to the medical bay before their captain had turned back to try and help Neo control the writhing demon in his arms. She was babbling incoherently now, screeching at such a high pitch that it was actually painful to their ears, and her face was red. She reached out blindly and caught Morpheus' ear, scraping it painfully. They kept out of the way of her teeth, having learned that lesson from what had happened to Trinity. 

She didn't stop screaming, and the two of them merely struggled to hold her steady until Switch came back, Mouse hot on her heels, holding a hypodermic needle filled with the tranquilizers they'd given her before. Within minutes they'd taken effect, and the main deck grew eerily silent without the child's screams echoing in their ears. 

Morpheus helped Neo lower the child's unconscious body to the floor and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked up at his crew, all of them watching him for an answer. For a moment he felt lost. He didn't have an answer. This had never happened before. Nobody had ever so fiercely rejected the real world, especially not before learning the truth. He didn't know if it was because she was so young, or if this child was merely the kind of person they were not supposed ever to unplug. He couldn't say.

He couldn't say, and he knew they were waiting for an answer. 

"Keep her sedated," he said finally, speaking to the room at large. "We'll figure it out somehow." 

Nobody moved until finally Trinity stepped forward-no one had noticed her presence before-and very gently pulled the unconscious child into her arms, holding her like an object so precious that to break it would cost her life. No one said a word as she bore the child back into the depths of the ship; nobody so much as moved until they heard the screech of a cabin hatch being shut. 

Then a collective sigh ran through them and they turned to look at each other, nobody offering any answers.

She never really woke up again after that. Each time they let the tranquilizers wear off, she opened her eyes and immediately started babbling and screaming, flying into a raving panic without any pause. Nothing could keep her quiet or coax her into submission. Morpheus doubted if she could even hear them, and the wildness never left her eyes.

Trinity took to spending nights curled up on Eve's bunk, the child in her arms, holding her tightly as if she could _will_ away her ailment by simply being with her. But whatever was wrong, it wasn't something that could be chased away like that. Trinity slept little, and Neo wanted to help her but didn't know how. She refused to leave Eve's side except for short, necessary trips to eat, shower, and go through the motions of living normally. But she didn't. She was becoming a shadow, and Neo didn't know how to help her. 

Morpheus worried about all of them. He knew the Oracle was waiting, but he couldn't very well send the child into the Matrix heavily sedated. And whom would he send as her bodyguard, he wondered? She didn't trust Switch or Apoc, Mouse was training to become an operator, and Neo and Trinity were in no shape to go running about the Matrix. Trinity was making herself sick with worry over the child, and Neo was making himself sick with worry over Trinity. Morpheus knew he had to put a stop to it, but he was at a loss as to how. 

It was Neo himself who finally alighted upon a possible answer and asked Morpheus' permission to attempt his experiment. 

"I healed Switch and Apoc in the Matrix," he said. "Even Mouse, who was technically dead. Let me load Eve into the construct-go ahead and leave her unconscious. I want to see if I can fix what's wrong." 

Morpheus gave his permission, and Trinity brought Eve out, carrying the child herself. Neo was already loaded into the empty construct as Trinity placed Eve in Trinity's own chair and carefully plugged her into the program. 

She appeared in front of Neo, the rest of them crowding anxiously around the monitors to see what he might do. She looked like a heap of rags, her RSI reverting back to her forest clothes. Even unconscious, though, she kept the haircut Trinity had given her. Trinity felt oddly touched by this. 

Neo knelt by her unconscious body and they saw absolutely nothing happening on the screen. It was unimpressively boring, but after a few moments he asked them to pull him out. 

Opening his real eyes, he saw Trinity above him, felt her hand near the back of his neck as she unplugged him. For the first time in what seemed like years, she looked at him and smiled. The smile was full of pain, yes, but she had _smiled._

Catching both of them completely by surprised, Neo reached up with one hand and hooked it behind her neck, drawing her down to him. He kissed her gently, trying to show her with the quick gesture how much he still loved her, before releasing her. There was an odd light in her eyes, but she said nothing. 

"I can't fix it," Neo said, both his attention and Trinity's returning to the rest of the crew hovered around him.

"Why not?" Switch demanded. "You fixed us."

"But what happened to you was a result of the Matrix," Neo said. "It happened to your mind, not your body. I can't heal her just like I couldn't have healed Dozer if you'd plugged him into the construct. He was hurt here, in the real world. So was she."

"Do you know what's wrong with her?" Trinity asked, fearing she already knew the answer. 

Neo's eyes confirmed it. "I'm sorry, Trinity," he said. "She snapped-literally. She's gone insane." He shook his head. "There's nothing coherent left of her mind. Nothing for me to work with, even if I could reach her from there."

Trinity was gone before she could hear Morpheus order a course for Zion, before she could hear the order that Eve was to be kept unconscious until they reached the underground city. 

Neo was the one who followed her, who found her as she fell to her knees in the deserted hallway and was violently sick, her entire body shaking with the force of her heaving stomach. He was the one to repay some of her earlier kindness to him, when she had wordlessly helped him get over his difficult unplugging. He rested his hand against her forehead, carefully helped her to her feet, and walked with her to their cabin without a word. 

He was the one to gently lay a cool, damp cloth against her forehead as she collapsed upon their bunk and fell asleep, exhaustion and grief warring for chief emotion within her heart.

*****

After cleaning up the mess in the hall and making sure Eve was asleep in her cabin, Neo returned to find Trinity still sleeping. He couldn't move with the noiseless grace that Trinity did, but he tried his best. She didn't stir as he gently removed her boots and turned the cloth over on her forehead, then pulled off his own boots and settled himself on the bed next to her.

Relief filled him when she turned in her sleep and unconsciously curled into his side. Neo snaked his arm around her, wondering dully when the last time they had slept like this had been. In the Matrix, it had been back in that damnable cabin. In the real world-not since Morpheus had sent them on this fucking mission to begin with. Neo sighed and pulled her closer, reaching around to wrap their blankets around them both. They hadn't had the time or the inclination to be together like this since returning to the Neb, so wrapped up were they in Eve's unplugging and decline. 

He'd forgotten, though he had not previously thought that such a thing was possible, how incredible it felt to hold Trinity like this. He could feel her breathe, hear his own heartbeat loud in his chest, and he closed his eyes, trying to will his mind to shut up. There were too many questions they had yet to answer. What would happen, now, to Eve? They could not keep her unconscious forever, and she was dangerous both to herself and others in this state. He could not help her, and he didn't think anyone could. 

But Morpheus had told them to lay in a course for Zion. Neo held to the faint hope that there was help there before following Trinity's example and falling asleep.

*****

Trinity half-woke a dozen times during that night, and always Neo was a steady presence near her. Even in sleep, he gripped her comfortingly and she fell back asleep with nameless fears plaguing her but none of them rising to the surface to claim her. 

Neo woke at the insistent blinking of the lights as they came on for the day, abruptly realizing that he and Trinity had slept through the entire night and much of the previous afternoon. Feeling guilty-but not guilty enough to wake his sleeping partner-he gently pulled himself out of Trinity's arms and let himself out of their cabin, putting on his boots outside to cut down on the noise and then making his way to the cockpit where he knew Morpheus would be.

He was right. Morpheus turned and nodded at his approach, and waved a hand at the copilot's chair. "Sit. You have questions in your eyes."

Neo sat but didn't say anything. 

"Don't feel guilty," Morpheus said suddenly. "I think this was meant to happen."

"How can you say that?" Neo asked. "We just ruined that child's life for no purpose."

"It was well-meaning, which counts for more than you think," Morpheus said, but his voice was troubled. "I am truly sorry, Neo. I know you and Trinity cared for her."

"We love her," Neo said, unable to use the past tense yet. "Can't help it."

"From what you've said and what I saw of her before the unplugging, she seemed a sweet, tractable child. There is no reason for you to feel guilty. Feelings are what keep us from being machines, Neo. I seem to remember having this discussion with Trinity before." 

Neo cracked a small smile, knowing how uncomfortable Morpheus must have felt talking with his pseudo-daughter second-in-command about love. 

"Why Zion?" he asked suddenly. "Can someone there help her?"

Morpheus sighed, eyeing his protégé and measuring how ready Neo was to hear what he had to say. Neo was still exhausted, both emotionally and physically drained by the events of the past few weeks-months, Morpheus corrected himself. He could hardly believe it had been over two months ago that he'd originally sent them off to investigate the anomaly that had turned out to be Eve. 

"No, Neo," he said. "I don't think she can be helped. Not here." 

"Then why are we going in?"

Morpheus propped his fingers against each other, resting the tips together. "The Oracle has decided that it's time you and Trinity learn another hard truth," he said. 

Neo looked up, wary. "What truth?" he asked cautiously. 

"The truth about the Oracle's past," Morpheus said, "and what she really is. You see, Neo, it's not quite true that Eve is the only person ever to go mad upon unplugging." 

Neo stared at him for a long moment, and then with dawning comprehension said, "The Oracle. She went mad. She couldn't take it either."

"Yes." Morpheus gazed out at the ruined tunnels as they flew by. "She told me to bring Eve to her, whether in the Matrix or in the real world. I can't very well show up at her apartment with an unconscious child in my arms…so we're going to go see her in person." 

"She's in Zion? Permanently plugged in?"

"Yes." 

"She wants Eve?"

"Yes."

"Can she help her?"

"The child cannot stay here, Neo; the real world is not for her. Whatever happens, you will have to say goodbye." 

*****

Trinity opted to take Eve in herself, though Neo accompanied her as a silent shadow. They were hustled into the underground city, Neo seeing very little as they traveled deep into the capital building. 

And in a silent, dimly lit room in the secret passageways of the capital, they gazed upon a sight few had ever seen. Like an overage, overweight sleeping beauty, the Oracle lay upon a comfortable bed, her eyes closed peacefully, plugged permanently into the Matrix. There was another bed, obviously new, next to hers. Neo waited in the doorway, not daring to disturb the utter silence of the room, as Trinity slowly bore Eve over to the bed and gently lay her down. It looked like a mother casting the first handful of dirt over her child's coffin. Trinity's hands were gentle and loving as she released Eve, pressed the button that would activate the mechanism and plug Eve permanently back into the Matrix, and placed a final kiss on the child's forehead. 

Her eyes were dry as she turned around and walked quickly away.

_Don't grieve,_ the voice whispered in her head as their guide walked them back through the hallways. Trinity flinched visibly; it was the first time she had ever heard the voices in her head here, in the real world. Only in the Matrix had they ever come to her before.

_And why is the Matrix any different when it comes to _your_ abilities?_ the voice asked. _You're not the One._

Trinity knew that voice….

_Of course you know me, confounded child! Don't weep for her. She's with me now, and you can come visit her any time you like. She remembers some of you, though not everything._

It was the Oracle. 

_Now stop that ridiculous guilt. You brought her to me exactly as I asked. And if you loved her along the way, well, that's a gift you gave her. It will make my job easier. Don't grieve. You haven't lost her. Just gained some valuable insight. _

Trinity almost smiled. She felt Neo looking at her strangely, but ignored it. 

_Oh, I'm not the only one you hear. In fact, I'm not the one who spoke to you before. But now I'm going to change the subject. Tell me-still believe in God?_

No. Oh, no. Trinity wondered if there had ever been faith there, even with her parents' pure belief. 

_What do you believe in, then?_

Herself. Neo. Morpheus. 

_And why is that any different?_ There was a distinct chuckle._ Belief is belief, no matter how you look at it. Don't despair; this isn't the end. It's only the beginning. And mark my words, someday you and Neo will get to use those parenting skills you learned with Eve. But then, you already knew that, didn't you?_

The voice didn't speak again, and Trinity slipped her hand in Neo's as they walked. He squeezed her hand and she hid a small smile. So the Oracle knew.

Neo felt her squeeze his hand back, and relief flooded through him. Healing took time, but they would be okay. And they were in Zion, for the first time since he was unplugged, Morpheus was interviewing for a new operator (Mouse had failed miserably, not having the patience to sit and stare at the Core for hours on end), and new things were beginning all over the place. 

Trinity's eyes were alive as they rounded a corner and a sudden window showed the backdrop of Zion unfolding before them-amazing, and oddly beautiful. If this were a movie, Neo thought to himself, it would be the perfect moment to fade to black.

*****

_"Hello, Eve."_

"Who are you?"

"You may call me Grandmother, if you like."

"What's a grandmother?"

"Why, I am!"

"Where's Trinity?"

"Not far, I promise. But she decided it was better for you to live here with me. Her home was too cold for you-remember?"

"I remember-sort of."

"You won't be cold here. Just look at this nice warm blanket I've made for you."

"You're…like me."

"Of course I am, child. Or, rather, you are like me. What are you doing?"

"Why is the metal in my head gone?"

"Metal? In your head? That's one wild imagination you've got, kiddo. Was it there in your dreams?"

"I guess so…yes. Yes. In my dreams."


End file.
